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PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS 
OF EDUCATION 



AN ATTEMPT TO SHOW THE GENESIS OF 
THE HIGHER FACULTIES OF THE MIND 



W. T. HAREIS 



NEW YORK 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 

1902 






COPTKIQHT, 1898, 

By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. 



Electrotyped and Printed 
at the appleton press, u. s, a. 



Transfer 

Army and Navy Qlub 
March 3,1931 






PKEFACE 



In offering this book to tlie educational public, 
I feel it necessary to explain its point of view. Psy- 
chology is too frequently only an inventory of cer- 
tain so-called " faculties of the mind," such as the 
five senses, imagination, conception, reasoning, etc. 
And teachers have been offered such an inventory 
under the name of " educational psychology.'' It 
has been assumed that education has to do with " cul- 
tivating the faculties." Perhaps the analogy of the 
body has been taken as valid for the soul, and, inas- 
much as we can train thi^or that muscle, it is inferred 
that we can cultivate this or that faculty. The defect 
of this mode of view is that it leaves out of sight the 
genesis of the higher faculties from the lower ones. 
Muscles are not consecutive, the one growing out of 
another and taking its place, but they are co-ordinate 
and side by side in space, whereas in mind the higher 



yi PREFACE. 

faculties take the place of the lower faculties and in 
some sort absorb them. Conception, instead of exist- 
ing side by side with perception, like the wheels of a 
clock, contains the latter in a more complete form of 
activity. Sense-perception, according to the defini- 
tion, should apprehend individual things, and con- 
ception should take note of classes or species. But 
conception really transforms perception into a seeing 
of each object as a member of a class, so that the line 
between perception and conception has vanished, and 
we can not find in consciousness a mere perception of 
an individual object, but only that kind of perception 
which sees the object in its process of production. 
Moreover, this inventory-psychology misappre- 
hends the nature of classification and generalization. 
It believes it to be a result of analysis and abstraction, 
whereas it is really a synthesis; to the object there 
is added its cause; the idea of the individual is en- 
larged by thinking it in the process that has produced 
it and others like it. For we connect one object with 
another by going back to the common process that 
originated both. This is the most radical error of the 
inventory-psychology. It is the source of a long train 
of other evils, for it arrests the investigation at the 
stage of isolated details, and makes impossible any 
insight into the genesis of the higher faculties of the 



PREFACE, yii 

mind. The doctrine of nominalism — and tlie so- 
called conceptualism of Hamilton and others is prac- 
tically nominalism — is the only logical result from 
its theory of generalization. Universals are only 
flatus vocis — mere names or mouthfuls of spoken 
wind: only individuals exist. It has never occurred 
to such psychologists to inquire whether the processes 
in which individuals are generated are not real 
too, and real in a higher sense than the individual 
things and events that they originate, modify, and 
destroy. 

Education has use for psychology only in so far as 
it shows the development of mind into higher activi- 
ties and the method of such development. What if 
the psychologist happens to know and recognise only 
the lower faculties, and to be ignorant of all but the 
names of the higher ones? It is evident that he will 
conceive under those names only the lower activities 
with which he is acquainted. This has, in fact, hap- 
pened often. Perception of individuals is all that 
inventory-psychology thinks under conception and 
generalization. The understanding with its relativ- 
ity doctrine is all that some followers of Kant think 
under the name reason. 

Again, it has happened that psychology recom- 
mended for teachers has been mostly of an individual- 



viii PREFACE. 

istic character, the principle of participation * in 
spiritual life being ignored. Hence all allusion to 
the psychology of society, of nations, of institutions, 
and especially of art and religion, has been omitted. 
Education can not be wisely administered except 
from the high ground of the spirit of civilization. 
The child is to be brought most expeditiously into a 
correct understanding of his relation to the race, and 
into a helpful activity within civilization. Unless 
the psychology of civilization is understood by the 
teacher, he will quite likely be harmed by learning a 
list of the so-called faculties. He will suppose, for 
example, that his business is to bring about a " har- 
mony among these faculties,'^ and develop them all 
symmetrically. Being ignorant of the way in which 
higher faculties re-enforce the lower, he will attempt 
to cultivate them isolatedly, and he will generally 
produce arrested development of the mind in the 
lower stages of its activities or faculties, and prevent 
the further intellectual growth of his pupils during 
their lives; for it happens that the fundamental cate- 
gories of the different faculties or activities are radi- 
cally opposed, and to harmonize them is to stultify 

* There is lately much activity among- the deeper sort 
of thinkers on psycholog-y in this province of social par- 
ticipation. See Chapter XXXV for some mention of it. 



PREFACE. ix 

the mind. The first stage of the understanding, for 
example (Chapter XXVII), holds an atomic view of 
the universe, while the second stage holds a pantheistic 
view; the former believes that all reality is an aggre- 
gate of individual independent things and events, 
while the latter thinks the reality is a one substance 
out of which things and events arise and into which 
they again disappear, like waves of the sea. 

The view of the reason is theistic and opposed 
to both views of the understanding, holding to indi- 
viduality, like the first or atomic stage of the under- 
standing, but limiting its atomic existence to personal 
beings; like the second or negative-unity stage, in 
holding that there is one institutional person in whom 
all persons unite socially and find their freedom. 

The attempt to harmonize these fundamental cate- 
gories, which preside over the activities called facul- 
ties, is, of course, worse than useless. The highest 
faculty contains the solution of the contradictions 
of the lower ones. The solution of immature activi- 
ties is to be found in growth out of immaturity. 

Education needs a psychology that will show how 
all activities, whether individual or social, react on 
children and men so as to develop them. The edu- 
cative influences should be shown not only of each 
branch in the course of study, or each discipline in 



X PREFACE. 

the school, but also of each institution — family, in- 
dustrial vocation, state, and Church; also of art and 
religion, of -plaj and work, of each national life from 
China to western Europe and America. Each object 
and each situation, every act of man or every refusal 
to act causes a reaction in the soul, educative in its 
effect; it has its mental factor or subjective coeffi- 
cient, and hence an educative result. 

This indicates sufficiently the point of view of 
this book. It is an attempt to show the psychological 
foundations of the more important educational factors 
in civilization and its schools. Special stress is laid 
on the evolution of the higher activities or faculties, 
and on the method of it. 

In my attempt to make a ladder of explanation 
from each new phase of life or thought to the princi- 
ple of self -activity, which is invoked as the ultimate 
principle, I have, as I am aware, seemed to make 
endless repetitions. But I hope that the candid 
reader will patiently try to justify me by seeing that 
the iteration is necessary for the connection of the 
new matter with the old principle of self -activity, and 
to save that reader from the burden of carrying in his 
memory what he has already read earlier in the book. 

W, T. Harris. 

Washington, D. C, February 3, 1898. 



ANALYSIS OF COI^TENTS. 



Introduction. To show the usefulness of psychology in edu- 
cation Pp. 1-10. 

§ 1. Psychology practically useful in determining pupil's course 
of study, his capacity for advance, his grasp of the lesson, the 
spirit of his intentions. § 2. Without it the teacher has to depend 
on ordinary experience, which is fragmentary and disconnected. 
§3. Empirical and rational psychology; the latter deals with 
philosophical presuppositions, with what is necessary rather than 
what is accidental, with what belongs to the essential structure of 
the mind. § 4. Physiological psychology deals with corporeal 
manifestations of mind ; introspection deals with internal objects 
— feelings, ideas, and volitions. Introspection also necessary to 
physiological observations, because without it no object could be 
recognised as a feeling, thinking, or self -active being, since sense- 
perception sees none of these things. § 5. Arrested development 
an importent topic in educational psychology ; how far thorough- 
ness may be insisted on in the different studies without arresting 
the mind on lower stages of growth. § 6. The greatest assist- 
ance to the teacher comes from a knowledge of the three stages of 
thought and the three different views of the world that arise from 
them : (a) All objects independent and real — sense-perception ; 
(b) all things and events dependent on environment, all is rela- 
tive — the understanding ; (c) all dependent being presupposes in- 
dependent being, which is self -active ; true being is self-active, 
and exists as will and intellect — a personality. 

FIRST PART. Psychologic Method . . Pp. 13, 144. 

§ 7. To show by examples of investigation the method of 
rational psychology ; how to reach the most useful insights that 



xii ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS. 

furnish clews to psychology and reveal its method of investiga- 
tion ; the insight into self-activity as the key to the explanation 
of life and mind. 

Chapter I. — What is meant hy Educational Psychol- 
ogy Pp. 14-16. 

§ 8. All activities of man have an internal or mental side ; hence 
there is a psychology to all that man feels, knows, and wills ; the 
business of psychology to show this ; moreover, this inner reaction 
is educational ; hence educational psychology must investigate 
the inner reaction that accompanies the manifold activities of 
man. 

Chapter II. — WJiat is Introspection 9 . . . Pp. 17-23. 

§ 9. Consciousness of the inward activity of the mind is a 
necessary factor in observation of the world in so far as self-ac- 
tivity is recognised in the life of plants and animals ; or activity 
according to design in any objects. § 10. Theory of evolution sees 
everywhere development from mechanical aggregates toward vital 
organisms ; Clifford's " ejects." § 11. Hence evolution recognises 
introspection in the objective world as the goal of its progress; 
Plotinus said, " Nature is greedy of beholding itself." 

(^^KY'rm. \\\,— What is Self -activity f . . . Pp. 23-31. 

§ 12. The great central fact in psychology is self-activity ; de- 
nied by Herbert Spencer in his First Principles ; also by Mansell. 
§ 13. Mental pictures of self-activity impossible, but also motion, 
change, and energy unpicturable. § 14. Assimilation, sensation, 
volition, thought, are forms of self-activity, and its denial makes 
both physiology and psychology impossible. § 15. Phenomena 
that involve self-activity; plants have assimilation. § 16. Ani- 
mals have assimilation, locomotion, and sensation. § 17. Feeling. 
§ 18. Sensation. This chapter (III) to be expanded into Part II 
of this work. 

Chapter lY.—The Three Stages of Thought . Pp. 32-37. 

§ 19. Plato discovered the third stage and described all three ; 
the atomic stage, or "common sense." § 20. The category of 
relativity ; Isaac Newton a perpetual schoolmaster ; ancient scep- 
ticism ; Buddhism ; correlation of forces. § 21. Relativity pre- 
supposes self-relation. ^ 22. Each of the three stages a view of 
the world ; the third stage of knowing sees all in each or each in 
the light of all. 



ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS. xiii 

Chapter V. — A Concept not a Mental Picture . Pp. 37-43. 

§ 23. Current doctrine of percepts and concepts not true ; a 
concept not a mental image, but a definition of the process that 
produces the individual object. § 24. Mental image a specimen 
illustrative of the definition or concept ; concepts correspond to 
deeper realities than mere percepts ; Hume and nominalism. 

Chapter VI. — Time, Space, a7id Causality — three Ideas that 
make Experience possible Pp. 43-52. 

§ 25. Kant's doctrine of the structure of mind ; how its a priori 
forms or categories make experience possible. § 26. Synthetic 
activity of the mind, using time, space, and causality ; reaction of 
mind upon its sense-impressions. § 27. Space thought as infinite. 
§ 28. Infinite space a positive idea and not a negative idea as 
Hamilton supposed, for we see the necessity of space beyond any 
limit to space ; a limit to space requires space to exist in. § 29. 
Again, in order to know that a mental picture does not include 
all space, we must see that the boundaries of the picture require 
space to exist in, and therefore continue space rather than termi- 
nate it. § 30. Time also infinite, because a supposed beginning 
presupposes time before it. Importance to psychology of this 
fact — that we know the infinitude of space and time in an affirma- 
tive manner instead of negatively as Sir William Hamilton sup- 
posed. 

Chapter VII. — Causality and the Absolute . . Pp. 52-58. 

§ 31. Causality makes experience possible. If we had no idea 
of causality, we could not recognise ourselves as producers of our 
own deeds, nor recognise objects as causing our sense-impressions ; 
we should not distinguish what is subjective from what is object- 
ive ; and yet Hamilton supposed the idea of cause to be a " nega- 
tive impotence " of the mind ; but it really is the basis of all our 
positive or affirmative knowledge of the not-me, the objective 
world. § 32. Cause involves the idea of producing something 
new ; it is the unity of identity and difference in a deeper idea — 
that of energy ; without it we should deny the possibility of origi- 
nation of anything new. § 33. Analysis of the idea of cause finds 
that it consists in the production of a distinction within itself 
and the transfer of it to another, which is the effect ; self-separa- 
tion accordingly is the basis of causality; this is self-activity ; this 
can not be imaged ; Kant's third antinomy solved ; causality the 



xiv ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS. 

basis of the ideas of God and moral responsibility. § 34. Distinc- 
tion between human and divine personalities ; potential and real. 

Chapter VIII. — The Psychological Meariirig of the hifinite 
and Absolute Pp. 58-62. 

§ 35. The true ideas of infinitude and first cause lie at the basis 
of educational psychology, because they make possible the higher 
orders of knowing ; without them the ideas of education (God, 
freedom, and immortality) are not possible ; Herbert Spencer's 
self-contradiction in denying ultimate religious ideas while affirm- 
ing the doctrine of the persistence of force. § 36. True insight 
into causality as originating distinctions and diiferences — as pro- 
ducing variations and modifications is necessary for any progress in 
understanding psychology ; Herbert Spencer's denial of free will. 

Chapter IX. — The Logic of Sense-perception. What Figure 
of the Syllogism Apperception uses .... Pp. 62-70. 

§ 37. The logical structure of the intellect an important part of 
rational psychology ; the syllogistic activity of the mind used not 
only in conscious reasoning, but also in the lower activities, such 
as sense-perception and even feeling. § 38. Sense-perception uses 
the second figure of the syllogism in recognising its object ; it is 
identified by perceiving some mark or quality in it that is remem- 
bered as belonging to an object formerly perceived, the common 
mark being the middle term. § 39. The four valid modes of the 
second figure ; the technical terms of logic ; definitions of figures. 

Chapter X. — How Sense-perception uses the First Figure to 
re-enforce its first act which takes place in the Second Figure. 

Pp. 70-77. 

§ 40. The class or species of the object having been identified 
by the second figure, the first figure is used to anticipate other 
features of the object known to belong to the class, and these are 
identified one after another in the object, or, if not found, lead to 
a correction of the first act of recognition and a new classifica- 
tion. § 41. It is important to note that the so-called valid modes 
are not used in sense-perception ; certainty is reached by multi- 
plied acts of verification. § 42. School instruction gives the pupil 
the stored-up results of human experience, and prepares him to 
anticipate experience by using the first figure to test the results 
of the second figure and revise its conclusions; hence, quick per- 
ception is taught not so much by repeated perceiving as by ap- 



ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS. 



XV 



perceiving, and this made accurate and exhaustive by the re- 
enforcement of the second figure by the first figure, t^ 43. Hegel's 
modification of Aristotle's doctrine of the syllogism ; the valid 
modes of the first figure ; the symbolism of a, e, i, o, and s, m, p. 

Chapter XI. — Roiv General Concepts arise. How Sense-per- 
ception uses the Third Figure of the Syllogism to store up its 
Experience in General Terms Pp. 78-89. 

§ 44. In the third figure the object is the middle term ; two 
predicates are found in it and thus united, making a definition of 
a new subclass ; the valid modes of the third figure ; explanation 
of the words used to name the modes ; significance of the letters 
h, c, d, /, and s,p,ni; baroco and bocardo explained. § 45. How 
the third figure in sense-perception presupposes the action of the 
second figure, g 46. After the action of the third figure the first 
and second verify by new observations, and store up experience in 
ragard to the existence of few or many examples of the new class, 
t^ 47. Causality perceptions through third figure. § 48. Subjec- 
tive and objective causal relations in the third figure suggest 
names for subclasses. § 49. Mistake of ordinary psychology in 
explaining the formation of general ideas ; formed by division of 
still more general ideas, which are vague and empty till they re- 
ceive content by recognising their subclasses through the third 
figure. § 50. Natural system of mnemonics arises through the 
third figure; peculiarities observed, aid the memory. § 51. Ex- 
amples of subjective and objective use of the causal idea in nam- 
ing classes and subclasses. § 52. The third figure produces a 
definition ; experience may discover many or few individuals that 
fall under it ; summary statement of the three figures. § 53. How 
the subclasses arise by division from the more general classes ; the 
particular categories from the universal, and all from the self or 
ego as the summum genus; Hegel's logic. 

Chapter XU.—Body and Ilind . . . .Pp. 90-93. 

§ 54. The study of the nervous organism ; connection between 
mind and body always assumed ; what is it? centripetal and cen- 
trifugal nerve currents ; mechanical versus vital action ; it takes 
energy to guide energy; self-activity is at one extreme of nerve 
action and the mechanical activity at the other; the object in 
physiological psychology is to find where the one leaves oil and 
the other begins. 



xvi ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS. 

Chapter XIII. — Brain Centres of Sensation and 3Iotion. 

Pp. 93-98. 

§ 55. Early observations of sensor and motor nerves. § 56. The 
spinal cord thickens to form the medulla oblongata, the pons Va- 
rolii, the optic thalami, and the corpora striata ; the use of analogy 
by Luys ; action of the great ganglia described in language adapted 
to explain the digestion of food in the stomach. § 57. Difference 
between reflex and deliberative movements ; sensory impulses con- 
verted into motor impulses ; automatic actions do not need out- 
side stimuli. 

Chapter XIV. — The Localization of Fundioiis of the Brain. 

Pp. 98-114. 

§ 58. Early conjectures as to the bodily seat of the mind and 
its several functions. § 59. Gall and Spurzheim's phrenology. 
§ 60. Defect of Spurzheim's definitions of faculties ; his omis- 
sion of the higher faculties (of the third order) of knowing. § 61. 
Phrenological organs do not correspond to the convolutions, nor 
take account of the convolutions at the base of the brain or between 
the two hemispheres. § 62. The fissures of Sylvius and Rolando; 
other fissures. § 63. Boundaries of the lobes. § 64. Report of the 
anatomists negative to the claims of phrenology ; first positive dis- 
covery made by Broca in 1861 connecting loss of speech with 
disease of lower frontal convolution ; Eckhard and Meynert's dis- 
coveries; connection between the cortex and convulsive move- 
ments. § 65. Hitzig and Fritsch ; centres of movement near the 
fissure of Rolando ; David Ferrier's experiments on monkeys. 
§ 66. The results do not support the phrenological theory as to 
the motor areas of the brain ; Munk's theory as to mental images 
and motor centres. § 67. Goltz agrees with Munk that the cere- 
brum has to do with mental images ; Ferrier's view ; the second 
figure of the syllogism does not enable the mind to form motives, 
but the first figure is necessary for this because it brings the con- 
ception of potentialities different from those realized in the object 
before the senses. § 68. Exner's lines of investigation ; cases of 
lesion of brain and their mental effects; mutual criticisms of the 
investigators. § 69, Results negative as to showing the real na- 
ture of the mind, but very useful in pathology. § 70. Self-activity 
perceptible only in introspection, and transferred by inference and 
analogy to objects of external observation. § 71. The nerves and 



ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS. xvii 

brain are instruments for learning and controlling the external 
world ; the body organic, but the soul something higher — namely, 
a builder of organisms ; knowing and willing not biological but 
psychological. 

' Chapter XV.— The Will Pp. 114-119. 

§ 72. What physiological psychology may be expected to dis- 
cover, in view of its methods and means — namely, a stock of patho- 
logical knowledge regarding the proper care of the nervous system 
and the cure of its diseases ; the study of special organs can not 
reach metaphysical or moral results, because these relate to universal 
conditions of being and therefore transcend all organs ; the con- 
clusions of physiological psychology would therefore be only neg- 
ative ; unless organism can be transcended, there can be no uni- 
versal conclusions, or, indeed, conclusions of any sort ; for each 
conclusion is a subsumption of a particular under a universal. 
§ 73. The will lies entirely within the field of introspection ; its 
existence is a fact of consciousness ; its inconceivability is simply 
unpicturability ; the difference between the consciousness of the 
child or savage and that of the man cultured in reflection. § 74. 
Freedom of will seems impossible to minds on the first stage of 
reflection, or^n the doctrine of relativity; the two difficulties: 
first, to see beyond the doctrine of relativity ; secondly, to explain 
the fatalistic doctrine of the strongest motive and its alleged con- 
straint over the will. 

Chapter XVI. — The Fallacy of the Doctrine that the Strongest 
Motive governs the Will, and therefore the Will is not Free. 

Pp. 120-126. 

§ 75. Psychology must show why a false doctrine seems to be 
true^ by the three stages of knowing ; the motive seems to control 
the will only when it is regarded as an external reality existing 
independently of the will ; but a motive is not an existing thing 
any more than is a mental image ; it is a purpose or ideal of some- 
thing that does not yet exist, but will require an act of will to 
make it exist ; to say that a motive constrains the will is to say 
that something acts before it exists ; I must think away the con- 
ditions of existence in order to conceive a motive, for a motive is 
an ideal of a state of existence different from the actuality. § 76. 
The will is thus creative in two ways in acting according to mo- 
tive : First, it makes the motive by thinking an ideal that may 



xviii ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS. 

possibly exist in place of the actual ; secondly, it realizes the 
motive or ideal and annuls the actuality that was ; here it proves 
its freedom and superiority over the actuality, because it can con- 
ceive an ideal in place of the actual, and then proceed to make it 
take the place of the actual. § 77. The moral motive contains 
the ideal self — the perfectly independent ego — as its object, or end 
and aim ; it is therefore transcendent of all reality and outweighs 
death ; the moral motive is therefore the strongest and at the 
same time the arrival at perfect freedom of the will, because 
the will makes its independent self the sole object in willing ac- 
cording to the moral motive ; in sacrificing its life for another, 
it weighs in the balances all the motives of empirical reality and 
outbalances them with its transcendent self; the moral is the 
form of consistent self -activity ; that self-activity which would 
deny its own independence by nullifying the freedom of others 
is immoral. § 78. Spontaneity distinguished from moral free- 
dom ; co-operation of the individual will with the will of the 
social whole ; Kant's " categorical imperative " : act so that the 
deed will not contradict itself if it is made the universal act of all 
intelligent beings ; act so that if the social whole acted as you do, 
it would not reduce your action to a zero. § 79. The moral the 
highest motive, because it re-enforces the individual will by the 
will of the community, and thereby consolidates all intelligent 
will power into one ; Hegel's thought on this point. 

Chapter XVII. — Freedom versus Fate , . Pp. 127-134. 

§ 80. Self-activity is presupposed as belonging to independent 
being ; dependent beings therefore presuppose it also. § 81. Free- 
dom does not presuppose fate as its ground, but, on the contrary, 
fate presupposes freedom as more fundamental ; fate is phenome- 
nal and freedom is noumenal. § 83. Dialectic of fate or necessity 
shows it to be a part or side of the more comprehensive category 
of self-activity or freedom : assuming that all things are necessi- 
tated to be just as they are by the totality of conditions, it follows 
that each thing is derivative from the environment or totality, 
and hence there has been change ; in change something new be- 
gins and something old ceases to be; but the old was necessitated 
to be as it was by the totality of conditions. § 83. The new also 
is necessitated by the totality ; hence there must be two totalities 
of conditions, one for the old and one for the new, and therefore 



ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS. 



yix 



the totality must have changed ; but there is nothing outside the 
totality to necessitate it ; if it is necessitated it necessitates itself ; 
if it changes it changes itself; hence the totality must be self- 
active. § 85. Necessity, therefore, must be of a part and never of 
the whole ; fate is partial, self-activity total ; necessity belongs to 
the realm of effects, to dependent beings, self-activity and free- 
dom to independent being. § 86. Fatalistic necessity is a differ- 
ent thing from logical necessity, which is an internal necessity of 
being and not an external necessity ; a dialectic circle in which 
necessity is used in two senses. 

Chapter XVIII. — Old and New Psychologies compared as to 
their Provinces and their Results for Education ; a Review. 

Pp. 134-144. 

§ 87. The so-called " new psychology " taken to include physi- 
ological psychology and " child study." § 88. The " old psychol- 
ogy " had discovered and described the rational structure of the 
soul, (a) its syllogisms in three figures, {h) its stages of ascent; 
(1) nutritive as plant, (2) sensation and locomotion as animal, (3) 
rational in man who has sense-perception, imagination, memory, 
reflection, and pure thought; the active and passive intellects 
were discriminated and the doctrines of theism, freedom of will, 
and immortality were demonstrated by it. § 89. New explication 
of self-activity as object of introspection. § 90. German (Kan- 
tian) distinction of universality and necessity as the criterion of 
a priori knowledsre which transcends experience ; space, time, 
causality, and many other ideas transcend experience and yet make 
experience possible. § 91. Bodily conditions and how to rise out 
of the lower stages of mind to the higher, need physiological psy- 
chology and child study for their elucidation, and here is a great 
field for new psychology. § 92. The long period of helpless in- 
fancy. §93. Arrested development occasioned by overcultivatioii 
and too " thorough " drill in mechanical studies at this epoclio 
§ 94. The gamin of Victor Hugo. 

SECOND PART. Psychologic System. . Pp. 147-250 

Chapter XIX. — llethod and System in Psychology. Pp. 147-150. 

§ 95. System arises from the application of method ; method is 
the mode of activity of a principle ; its activity produces an or- 
ganic whole or system. § 97. Part I gave glimpses of the method, 
discussing self-activity, the infinite, the absolute, mental pictures 



XX ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS. 

and concepts, figures of the syllogism as showing mental struc- 
tures, the physiological psychology as counterpart to logic, the 
freedom of the will as the acme of self-activity. § 98. Method 
now applied to produce a system ; a growth or progressive realiza- 
tion of the principle (self-activity) through its method ; all facts 
should be seen as illustrations of the principle, or else the science 
is not yet perfect. 

Chapter XX. — The Individuality of Organic Beings. 

Pp. 151-154. 

§ 99. Discrimination of inorganic from organic. § 100. Indi- 
viduality of inorganic, g 101. Individuality of atoms. § 102. 
Mere aggregates not individuals. § 103. Individuality not a thing 
but an energy that transforms, orders, and arranges things for its 
purpose. Feeling a reproduction of the environment with and for 
the self. 

Chapter XXI. — Psychologic Functions of Plants and Animals 
compared Pp. 155-160. 

§ 104. Plant an aggregate of individualities building accord- 
ing to a type but lacking feeling or central unity. § 105. Animal 
individuality. § 106. Sense-perception as contrasted with assimi- 
lation or digestion ; feeling not a passivity of the soul. § 107. 
Feeling a reaction of the soul against environment. § 108. Of 
ascent from nutrition to feeling. § 109. Nutrition the destruction 
of the environment, feeling the reproduction of it. § 110. Per- 
ception objective, transforming the subject into the object ; nutri- 
tion subjective, transmuting object into subject. 

Chapter XXU.— Peelings and Emotions . . Pp. 160-166. 

§ 111. Feeling a higher mode of reaction on the external world 
than assimilation or digestion ; desire a more developed form of 
feeling, not merely a reproduction of the external, but a percep- 
tion of mutual limits of subject and object that makes their unity 
its object. § 112. Classification of feelings : (a) those that tend 
toward intellect ; (b) those that tend toward will ; (a) sensations, 
emotions, affections ; (?*) instincts, appetites, desires. §113. How 
to educate the feelings, not immediately but through intellect and 
will ; first give a correct intellectual view, and then make con- 
formity to it a habit ; then the correct view and correct habit be- 
come a second nature and the old feeling is gradually replaced by 
a new feeling, and the heart has been educated. § 114. Sense- 



ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS. xxi 

perception not only receptive of impressions but an act of intro- 
spection ; the scale of the senses ; touch, taste, smell, a more or less 
violent attack on the individuality of the environment; hearing 
and seeing, ideal senses in that they do not involve the destruction 
of the object perceived. 

Chapter XXIU.— The Five Senses . . . Pp. 166-170. 

§ 115. Feeling a sort of digestive activity not directed on its 
food but turned inward and acting upon itself and for itself ; 
touch, taste, smell, hearing, and seeing considered more in detail. 

Chapter XXIV. — EecoUection and Ilemory . Pp. 170-190. 

§ 116. Recollection can recall at pleasure the ideal object formed 
in the act of perception ; memory is systematized recollection ; it 
generates the faculty of perceiving things and events as individu- 
als of species or members of classes, and this makes possible lan- 
guage and the specially human form of mind ; it looks behind the 
object to its producing causes ; it sees in each object many other 
possibilities, a sort of halo of potentiality. § 117. This is a further 
activity of introspection ; it is an attention to the activity of rec- 
ollection ; for it re-enforces the present perception of the object by 
adding to it its past perceptions, hence completing the present ob- 
ject by adding to it its variations and thus seeing it in the perspec- 
tive of its history ; it thus transmutes the transient into the perma- 
nent and sees each individual in its universal ; the act of attention 
here' makes its appearance, since the mind in collecting its expe- 
rience around one individual must needs neglect other objects. 
§ 118. Generalization thus goes on in the swift unnoticed process 
of sense-perception and memory. §119. Mnemonic systems usually 
attempt to strengthen the memory by attention to accidental as- 
sociations instead of essential relations ; cultivate the memory 
directly where it is weak, but do not train the mind to notice acci- 
dental relations, for this ■yveakens the power of thought. § 120. 
The scale of ascent from limitation of the subject by the object in 
sense-perception to free reproduction of the object in memory. 
§ 121. Memory a double self-activity as compared with sense-per- 
ception. § 122. Overcultivation of sense-perception arrests de- 
velopment in memory and thought ; overcultivation of memory 
likewise arrests or deadens the power of thought and also of im- 
agination ; the will also settles into passive obedience through too 
much cultivation of the memory. § 124. Cases in which memory 



xxii ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS. 

should be cultivated ; associations that assist the power of thought 
and strengthen the memory at the same time. § 125. Memory not 
a simple faculty, but an entire series of activities; return to child- 
ish memory of trivial circumstances not desirable. § 126. Atten- 
tion strengthens one kind of memory while it weakens other kinds, 
and thereby makes the memory uneven. § 127. Memory less im- 
portant when the higher faculties grow strong ; how the memory 
and sense-perception grow less and less important through the re- 
sults of specialization ; Goethe's Homunculus ; Aristotle's observa- 
tion that the lower faculties, the passive intellect, are moribund. 

Chapter XXV. — From Perception to Conception ; each Object 
seen in its Class Pp. 190-197. 

§ 128. Memory versus recollection as a process of collecting 
about an object its variations and seeing it in its history ; nutri- 
tion, sense-perception, and representation reviewed. § 129. The 
seeing of an individual in its class is a consciousness of the free- 
dom of the ego to recall or represent to itself a former perception 
at pleasure ; as the ego can reproduce its percepts, it is a generat- 
ing activity. § 130. Here perception becomes conception, for the 
ego transfers its generating activity to the objective world, and 
sees everything as a product of a combination of causes, and as 
only one specimen out of an infinite number that the causal com- 
plex might produce. § 131. Universals not derived from particu- 
lars by analysis and abstraction, but rather by synthesis — the 
seeing of the individual object in its producing cause ; how the 
infant uses the third figure of the syllogism and brings out his 
ideas from emptiness and vagueness to definiteness and fulness 
of content. § 132. Concepts arise when the child can compare his 
recollection with reality. § 133. Human sense-perception differs 
from that of animals by the fact that it perceives all objects as speci- 
mens of classes; each is a particular in a universal; man perceives 
by means of concepts ; apperceives as well as perceives. § 134. 
The rise of self-consciousness, the perception of the ego is therefore 
joined to the rise from perception to conception. § 135. Imagina- 
tion and fancy freer than memory, but not with a rational freedom. 

Chapter XXVI. — Language the Distinguishing Characteris- 
tic of the Human Being Pp. 198-206. 

§ 136. The word fixes the concept ; language distinguishes the 
man from the animal. § 137. Language an evidence of immortal 



ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS. 



xxm 



individuality. § 138. Continuity of individuality not immortal- 
ity unless conscious. § 189. The energies of the soul in reaction 
against the energy of the environment. § 140. Recognition of 
the self coetaneous with recognition of the universal. § 141. 
How the self is a universal. § 142. The individual self an entire 
sphere of particularity ; Plato's *' reminiscence " explained. 

Chapter XXVII. — TJiinking as the Activity of the Under- 
standing, including '• Common Sense " and Reflection. 

Pp. 206-220. 

§ 143. Common sense uses the principle of contradiction in 
an abstract way, and does not admit relativity and dependent 
being ; can not solve the paradox involved in motion or becoming ; 
Herbert Spencer's denial of self-consciousness. § 144. Explana- 
tion of the conviction of common sense that all things are com- 
plete, independent totalities ; it deals with universals without 
being aware that all its percepts are likewise concepts. § 145. It 
figures to itself an abstract world of self-existent, atomic beings. 
§ 146. To refute common sense with its abstract law of contradic- 
tion, show the object's relations of dependence and the significance 
of becoming and change. § 147. The stage of reflection follows 
that of common sense when the idea of the necessary relativity of 
things is seized ; the correlation of forces belongs as a doctrine 
to the stage of reflection ; scale of ideas : (a) sensuous ideas perceive 
things, (h) abstract ideas perceive forces, (c) concrete idea perceives 
persistent force, {d) absolute idea perceives self-determination; 
Hume's psychology the reductio ad ahsurdum of Locke ; Herbert 
Spencer's " symbolic ideas." § 148. The understanding dogmat- 
ical (common sense) and sceptical (reflection). § 149. The under- 
standing holds to the finite, taking the perishable for the imper- 
ishable and the noumenal for the phenomenal. § 150. Deduction 
of the phenomenal. § 151. Deductions of negative unity as tran- 
scendent-, the Sankya philosophy, a doctrine of the negative 
unity transcendent. § 152. The Aufklarung, or period of scepti- 
cism : it is the advent o the idea of negative unity in reflection. 
§ 152. Negative unity the summit of the understanding. 

Chapter XXVIIL— ^e Reason . . .Pp. 220-227. 
. § 153. The highest thought of the understanding is that of 
negative unity wherein all individuality is swallowed up, as a sea 
swallows up its waves ; but the negative unity must also cause 



xxiv ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS. 

the individuals which it absorbs again into itself, and cause them 
through its own energy or self-activity; hence self-activity is the 
basis of a negative unity. § 154. Self-activity is therefore pre- 
supposed by pantheism to make its negative unity possible ; but 
self-activity establishes theism rather than pantheism ; analysis of 
self-determination finds in it the substance or negative unity of 
pantheism, and, besides it, also the causal creative energy of theism. 
§ 155. Causa sui ; the negative unity the ultimatum of analysis 
and the beginning of synthesis. § 156. The affirmative function of 
the understanding ; the significance of naming things for the child. 
§ 157. Language makes both phases of the understanding possible, 
for it is a process of taking up into consciousness the results of 
the unconscious action of the concept-forming stage, which have 
been preserved by words. § 158. The doctrine of persistent force 
as negative unity of things and forces when grasped fully reveals 
personality underlying it as the true form of being ; the four 
forms of ideas — (1) sensuous, (2) abstract, (3) concrete, (4) absolute 
— correspond to four views of the world ( Weltanschauung en). 

Chapter XXIX. — A Review of the Psychology of the Intel- 
lect Pp. 228-236. 

§ 159. Explanation of the style of this book, its repetitions and 
incessant return to the beginning. There are many lines of result 
that lead out from each new principle, and hence it is necessary 
to trace out one after another, and a new statement of the first 
step becomes necessary ; how a method grows to a system ; if its 
principle is self-activity it is also a method, for we have only to 
ask what a self- activity will do or produce to discover its method ; 
Hegel's Begriff as the identity of principle and method ; review 
of the systematic unfolding of self-activity from plant to the 
rational soul in the light of immortality. § 160. The study of 
the higher faculties reveals the destiny of the lower faculties ; it 
shows what is positive or affirmative in them and what is nega- 
tive (this is the most valuable service of psychology for the edu- 
cator) ; where permanent individuality begins ; the memory of 
the self necessary to immortality; memory dies only when re- 
placed by a higher activity, which is memory and a great deal 
more. § 161. The arrival at this higher activity a matter of edu- 
cation and the goal of human existence ; man's bodily and spir- 
itual individualities ; significance of death. 



ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS. 



XXV 



Chapter XXX.— The Will and the Intellect . Pp. 236-250. 

§ 163. Still another review of the ascent from sense-perception 
to reason, but this time from the standpoint of the will ; with the 
view of the world given by reason we see that complete self-de- 
termination, such as is found in conscious personality, is the 
ground of the objective world and its innermost cause ; person- 
ality is not only intellect but will, not only subjective but objec- 
tive. § 163. How the will turns the passivity of mere sensation 
into attention. § 164. Attention the beginning of culture or edu- 
cation ; it turns the chaos of sense-impressions into a system by 
selecting one object and neglecting all others. § 165. Attention 
produces analysis or discrimination in the object (use of the third 
figure of the syllogism, the object being the middle term, new 
qualities discovered in it furnish subclasses) ; through analysis 
we discover the influence of other objects, and hence we see how 
the object belongs to a larger whole, including it and other ob- 
jects which influence or modify it ; this is synthesis. § 166. Syn- 
thesis is the discoverer of relativity, of essential relation ; two 
kinds of attention — critical alertness in the observation of the 
things and events going on around one, and absorption in a train 
of thought following out the logical presuppositions of an object 
(compare Herbart's Besinnung and Vertiefung). § 167. The con- 
tinued use of analysis and synthesis arrives at the discovery of 
interrelations and dependence, and the doctrine of universal rela- 
tivity makes its appearance, for if each is dependent on the others 
there is only one whole. Here we have found again the negative 
unity as the result of the action of the will on the intellect ; fur- 
ther, the whole can not be dependent on another whole, and hence 
it is independent, and therefore again self-active. § 168. Illus- 
tration of the transition from the thought of negative unity to 
the thought of self-activity ; correlation of forces shows each force 
as running down, but in so doing it winds up another force, hence 
perpetual motion ; but perpetual motion logically presupposes 
self-activity, for it continually produces the tension (winding u])) 
which, in restoring its equilibrium (running down), becomes change 
and movement (a tension is produced by the difference between 
an ideal and a real ; a coiled spring has a shape in which it is at 
equilibrium, and then it exerts no force on its environment ; wind 
it up and we make its real different from its ideal ; we destroy its 



xxvi ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS. 

equilibrium of ideal and real, and force exerted on its environ- 
ment is the result ; unless there is winding up by the separation 
of the ideal from the real, all would stop with its running down. 
Grasp together this winding up with its running down, and we 
have the idea of self-activity ; in exerting our wills by a volition 
we create an ideal different from the real, and this results in force; 
I will to raise ray arm by making its ideal an elevated arm, where- 
as it is really by my side). § 169. The action of the will in inhib- 
iting the lower and relatively passive orders of knowing ; the five 
intentions of the will producing successively attention, analysis, 
synthesis, reflection, insight ; Aristotle's nomenclature. §170. In- 
sight perceives personality or completed will as the truth of the 
universe ; but insight arises in us through the determination ot 
the intellect by the will ; hence will causes the intellect to see 
will as the universal reality. § 171. The feelings tend toward 
intellect or toward will ; hence they can be educated by the con- 
scious will, as shown in Chapter XXVI. § 172. Not sense-per- 
ception but insight sees the concrete truth. § 173. Psychology 
not necessary for the unfolding of the higher orders of knowing, 
any more than physiology and hygiene are necessary for the per- 
formance of digestion and breathing; but it explains them, and 
is necessary for a correct theory of them or for any just criticism 
of them ; if something is wrong, psychology is necessary to cor- 
rect it. 

THIRD PART. Psychologic Foundations . Pp. 253-400. 

§ 174. Part I illustrates the method. Part II deduces system- 
atically the phases of the intellect. § 175. Part III applies the 
doctrines unfolded in Parts I and II to the explanation of prob- 
lems of human culture or education, for there are psychological 
foundations to each product of human activity ; this psychologic 
basis is to be shown for (1) society and its institutions ; (2) the 
history of nations; (3) art and literature; (4) science and phi- 
losophy; (5) the course of study in schools; (6) the grading of 
schools as elementary, secondary, and higher. 

Chapter XXXI. — The Psychology of Social Science. 

Pp. 254-263. 

§ 176. Participation produces the social whole; through it the 
individual is elevated above savagery ; vicarious living of the race 
for the individual ; Nature versus human nature ; society a human 



ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS. xxvii 

creation, and hence the ascent out of mere nature into human na- 
ture an act of freedom or self-determination. § 177. The institu- 
tions of civilization, family, civil society, the state, the Church. 
§ 178. The family equalizes the differences of age, sex, strength, 
health and disease, maturity and immaturity, through mutual 
help. § 179. Civil society the realm of individual independence; 
each producer avails himself through his own production to lay 
tribute on all the other workers in the world ; he makes all civil 
society serve him, but he in turn serves all. § 180. The state is 
the social whole become a person for itself, the will of the whole 
acting for itself, the intellect of the whole discovering its true 
interests; the principle of justice; the return to each man the 
fruits of his deed ; the overt act ; sin and crime ; justice and 
mercy. § 181. The Church; worship and sacrifice the two ele- 
ments of religion ; the negative act of the intellect and the nega- 
tive act of the will. 

Chapter XXXII. — The Institutions that educate. 

Pp. 264-'^69. 

§ 182. The education of infancy by the family called nurture ; 
personal habits, courtesy toward others, etiquette of life, self- 
control, mother tongue ; play. § 18o. Education of the school in 
the " conventionalities of human intelligence " ; the technicalities 
of intercommunication, reading and writing; tools of thought; 
mathematics and science. § 184. Education of one's vocation ; to 
limit himself to a specialty and acquire skill of production ; the 
consciousness of his dependence on society, and of his discharge 
of his obligation by means of the product of his industry ; division 
of labor increases indefinitely the quantity of production and im- 
proves its quality : the consciousness of his power to convert de- 
pendence and debt into independence and economic freedom by 
industry a high order of education, § 185. The education of the 
state a still higher influence; giving him the consciousness of his 
greater s51f, the personality of the social whole ; his possession of 
its might and his pride in its deeds ; his consciousness of justice 
and responsibility. § 186. Education of state contrasted with 
that of civil society. § 187. The education of religion highest 
of all ; the absolute ideal, its influences on all other forms of edu- 
cation. 



xxviii ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS. 

Chapter XXXIII.— T/te Psycliology of Nations . Pp. 270-281. 

§ 188. The three culture nations — Greece, Rome, and Judea ; 
the function of Judea. § 189. The Roman contribution to civiliza- 
tion ; the forms of the will defined in the civil law. § 190. The two 
gifts of Greece to modern civilization ; art and science. § 191. The 
contributions to civilization of China, East India, Persia, the Eu- 
phrates Valley, Asia Minor, the Nile Valley, Phoenicia, the Teu- 
tonic peoples. 

Chapter XXXIV. — Reactions against the Social Order — 
Crime and Play Pp. 281-294. 

§ 192. The social order seems a sort of fate to the individual 
when he does not comprehend its object and its help to the indi- 
vidual; it exists in order to make all help each and each help all. 
In the lowest forms of government the social whole is all in all, 
and the individual initiative is nothing ; in the highest form the 
individual is conscious of himself as law-maker as well as law- 
obeyer; the great means of reconciling free individuality with 
obedience to the social order is play ; in play the individual puts 
on the forms prescribed by the social whole, but does it arbitrarily 
and capriciously, as if it were at his own pleasure and not a mat- 
ter of obedience to outside authority : («) play deepens the feeling 
of selfhood, and develops originality and the sense of responsi- 
bility ; (6) play in the Greek life ; the expression of freedom in 
the body as gracefulness ; (c) the Roman idea of free contract and 
the production of a social will by the free combination of indi- 
vidual wills ; the arch and dome as symbols of it ; {d) the Roman 
games; (e) the Saturnalia; (/) the carnival and its imitations; 
{g) how the Anglo-Saxon celebrates his sense of freedom by seek- 
ing adventures in border-lands ; {h) the newspaper brings a daily 
spectacle of the doings of the human race, and helps each indi- 
vidual to realize his identity with that gigantic personality ; {i) the 
novel a sociological means invented by the age of productive in- 
dustry to secure for the individual the consciousness of his iden- 
tity with his greater selves organized in the institutions of civili- 
zation. § 193. The reaction against the social order of the school 
and college ; school recess ; college secret societies, hazing, initia- 
tions, pranks on the citizens, college songs ; {a) pranks of the stu- 
dent help preserve his elasticity against the {h) self-estrangement 
which constitutes so large a part of all education. § 194. The re- 



ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS. xxix 

action against social order becomes crime when it fixes itself per- 
manently and seriously ; (a) crime attacks the social whole and 
tends to destroy the great process of re-enforcement of the in- 
dividual by society; (h) sin and crime discriminated ; (c) separation 
of Church and state ; (d) the measurement of crime ; the penalties 
as symbols of the effects of the deeds returned on the doers; 
(e) poetic justice; literature as teaching the nature of crime and 
sin and their reactions against the doers. § 195. Man's two 
selves (a) the psychology of Dante's Inferno : (1) the sins of in- 
continence, their effects on the soul to punish it ; (2) the sins of 
envy take the form of fraud, and punish the doers by shutting 
them off from the blessings of social intercourse ; (3) the sins of 
pride take the form of treachery ; (b) the psychology of Dante's 
Purgatory ; the consciousness of the nature of mortal sin makes 
the sinner desire purification, and he is glad of the pain which 
helps him rid himself of what obstructs his ascent to holiness. 

Chapter XXXV.— The Psychology of Infancy . Pp. 295-321. 

§ 196. What the child learns in his first four years ; Preyer's 
observations on the infant; some of the epochs of the first year; 
holding up its head ; standing alone ; walking; recognition of the 
members of the family; imitation. § 197. The acquisition of lan- 
guage enables him to learn not only by his own senses, but, through 
the senses of all his acquaintances ; his delight in discovering that 
each thing and event are links in a long causal series (the " house 
that Jack built " is a symbolic account of this discovery). § 198. 
The place of imitation in education; it is social in its very nature : 
(a) manners and customs are imitated forms of doing; fashion 
has a high meaning as a sort of emancipation from superstitious 
observances; (b) imitation as the basis of intellectual culture; 
hypnotic suggestion. § 199. Imitation is self-activity ; it is an 
act of emancipation from heredity and natural impulse, for the 
imitator represses his own impulses to be himself alone, and puts 
on by an effort the habits or semblances of another person: 
(a) there is an element of originality in all imitation ; (b) origi- 
nality increases by progression from imitation of external details 
to imitation of the spirit in which the deed is done, when an in- 
sight is reached into the causes and motives of the thing imitated ; 
(c) when the principles and methods are understood, the child is 
emancipated from imitation ; Id) M. Tarde, Les lois de I'imitation ; 



XXX ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS. 

(e) M. Tarde the anti-Rousseau. § 200. Parrotlike imitation is 
considered the lowest intellectual activity; to make it the basis 
of all education as well as the staple of it has something of rail- 
lery in it ; to say that man is a symbol-making animal suggests 
art and literature, institutions, religion, civilization ; the monads 
of Leibnitz ; Wilhelm Meister and the theatre ; to acquire cul- 
ture, one must assume higher ideals and practise them until they 
become a second nature ; Goethe intended to show how much this 
resembles the dramatic art. § 201. Language enables the child to 
see possibilities and form motives; it adds to the external seeing 
an internal seeing of possibilities in the shape of uses, adaptations, 
transformations and combinations, surrounding the object as a 
sort of halo ; the animal has the external seeing, which beholds the 
real object, but man adds the internal seeing which beholds these 
long trails of adaptation. § 202. The symbolic stage of mind, 
wherein the child thinks in images or mental pictures, comes first-, 
in the definition, which is non-picturable, the child arrives at 
thought ; but the mental picture or symbol does not suffice for a 
definition ; it has only one side of a definition, namely, the par- 
ticular ; the mind is to supply the universal by an unconscious 
effort ; in the definition both the universal and the particular are 
expressed ("the proximate genus and the specific difference"). 
§ 203. Consequently the symbolic phase is synthetic rather than 
analytic. § 204. (a) Personification places a soul in a particular 
thing, or a self-activity in a dead result ; (b) metaphor transmutes 
a thing into soul by giving it a spiritual meaning ; (c) play sub- 
stitutes one thing for another or one activity for another, dealing 
with particulars like symbolism ; it changes the fixed limits of 
actuality, and thus adds to the particular object a sort of univer- 
sal adaptation ; to play that a stick is a horse is to give the stick 
a universal being — the possibility of becoming horse and anything 
else that the fancy may dictate; (d) unconscious symbolism of 
poetry and mythology in which particular things become univer- 
sal types ; fairy tales mould the real world to suit the caprice of 
the child ; they give him a sense of freedom, a consciousness of 
the power of mind over matter. § 205, The symbolic passes over 
into the conventional when the mental picture is less considered 
and the idea it conveys more sharply accented ; by and by the 
mind forgets the material image altogether ; the rise of a myth 



ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS. xxxi 

out of symbols ; the natural symbolism of regularity, symmetry, 
and circular movement ; the sun myth ; the poetic myth contains 
a view of the world ; Egyptian symbols. § 206. The kindergar- 
ten occupations, songs, and games ; the child's reproduction of 
the doings of society ; his conscience ; he outgrows his playthings ; 
unmaking as useful as making ; Wilhelm Meister's puppet show 
and arrested development. § 207. The conventional; what the 
child needs at the age of seven ; reading and writing ; play versus 
work; danger of arresting development by too much work in 
childhood. 

Chapter XXXVI. — Psychology of the Course of Study in 
Schools — Elementary, Secondary, and Higher. Pp. 321-341. 

§ 208. The psychological meaning of the course of study ; the 
five windows of the soul : (1) mathematics, time, space, and me- 
chanical relations; (2) organic nature, geography; (3) literature 
and art, human nature as feelings, convictions, aspirations ; 
(4) grammar, logic, philosophy the intellectual structure; (5) his- 
tory, the doings of the greater social self as reaction ; five co-ordi- 
nate groups. § 209. Education for culture and education for 
one's vocation ; general and special education : symmetry for cul- 
ture studies and specialization for vocation studies. § 210. Psy- 
chological coefficient of each study; category of quantity in 
mathematics, of self-activity in language studies ; introspection 
in grammar; symbol-making activity in literature: (a) will, his- 
tory, (b) intellect, grammar, (c) heart, literature ; these are cate- 
gories of human nature, while the categories of Nature are quan- 
tity for the inorganic phase, and life for the organic stage ; proof 
that these five divisions of studies are co-ordinate, and that no 
one of them is a substitute for any other, («) to (e); other school 
studies or disciplines, drawing, manual training, music, gymnas- 
tics; their intellectual coefficient already found in the five 
groups (/) ; school education considered as the acquirement of 
techniques (g). § 211. Secondary instruction continues the five 
groups. § 212. Higher instruction continues the five lines into 
(a) higher mathematics and physics, (b) organic sciences (biology, 
geology, botany, etc.), (c) philology, logic, philosophy, (d) moral 
philosophy, political economy, and other social sciences, philoso- 
phy of history, constitutional history, (e) literature and art, their 
history and philosophv ; the limits of elementarv education (a) ; 
3 



xxxii ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS. 

how the secondary education corrects its defect by studying the 
grounds of the data given by it, (c) higher education is mostly 
comparative study, the view of each branch in the sight of all tho 
others ; hence it is practical or useful for directing one's actions : 
it is philosophical and ethical because it connects particular facts 
and events with the view of the world {d), (e) ; contrast between 
elementary and higher educations, the " self-made man " (/), (g) ; 
a general conspectus showing the five co-ordinate groups in each 
of the three classes of schools. 

Chapter XXXYll.—The Psychology of Quantity. Pp. 341-350. 

§ 213. Mathematics and literature the extremes of the five 
groups of study ; special investigation of the psychologic basis of 
these extremes in this and the next chapters. § 214. Quantity as 
opposed to quality, indifference as opposed to difference ; sameness 
necessary for enumeration; quantity a double thought, positing 
quality and negating it ; a thing becomes a unit when it is thought 
as being a series of repetitions of itself, one of a multiple and itself 
a multiple of equal parts (a), (b). § 215. Quantity is therefore a 
ratio of two units, the constituent units being the first, and the 
whole or sum which they make being the second ; seven is a unity 
of its ones, and each of its ones is a constituent unity ; the ele- 
mentary operations of arithmetic. § 216. Ratio not explicit in 
simple numbers, but becomes explicit in fractional forms; the 
psychology of the operations in thinking fractions (a), (b); deci- 
mal fractions (c), {d), (e) ; ratios in the form of powers and roots, 
logarithms, the calculus (/), {g), (h). § 217. Quality includes (1) 
affirmation ; (2) negation ; (3) limitation ; in self-activity the self 
is the limited and also the limit ; quantity lies between quality 
and self-activity ; its limits, being similar units, continue as well 
as limit it; in quality the other is not a repetition of the thing 
which it limits, as is the case in quantity and self-activity. § 218. 
The idea of quantity. 

Chapter XXXVIII. — The Psychology of Art and Literature. 

Pp. 351-375. 

§ 219. Psychology of the beautiful ; sensuous elem.ents — regu- 
larity, symmetry, and harmony ; symbolic, classic, and romantic 
epochs of art ; architecture, sculpture, painting, music, and poetry ; 
art not merely for amusement («); art the manifestation of the 
divine to sense-perception ; the true, the beautiful, and the good, 



ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS. xxxiii 

as bases of philosophy, art, and religion (b) ; matter becomes a 
work of art when made to manifest self-activity (c), (d). § 220. 
Regularity beautiful because it suggests the repetition of the self in 
consciousness, self being subject and repeating itself as object (a) ; 
importance of return to self. § 221, Symmetry a more adequate 
symbol of the self. § 222. Harmony the correspondence of the 
outer to the inner, a still deeper identity under difference than 
regularity or symmetry; why the human form is beautiful in 
Greek statues (a) ; psychology of ungracef ulness (b) ; gracefulness 
is the expression of freedom in the body (c). ^ 223. Is art the 
imitation of Nature? Nature does not reflect freedom in itself 
except in its forms of life, and even then does not reflect so high 
an order of freedom as is found in human action ; but Nature is 
charming to us for a subjective reason — namely, it suggests a sense 
of relief from care and worry (a). § 224. Symbolic art does not 
create forms of free movement, but represents the crushing out 
of individuality ; it indicates the soul struggling with matter to 
find free expression and not attaining it ; symbolic art in India (6), 
Persia (c), the Euphrates Valley (d), Egypt (e), (/), (^r). § 225. 
Classic art reaches the expression of complete bodily freedom, 
which is gracefulness ; " classic repose " ; the Greek religion one 
with art (a) ; the Olympian, Isthmian, Nemean, and Pythian games ; 
the preservation of the shapes of the victors at these games in stone 
by the sculptors (c). § 226. Romantic art reveals the aspiration 
of the soul for the supersensual, and hence it contradicts art, for 
it shows the inadequacy of show; it manifests freedom from the 
body while classic art manifests freedom in the body. § 227. Ro- 
mantic or Christian art the transition of art to religion; the peren- 
nial function of Greek art to portray man's conquest over Nature 
by means of science and mechanic inventions. § 229. Architec- 
ture symbolic (a), classic (6). (c), romantic (d). § 230. Christian 
not so successful as the Greek with sculpture. § 231. Painting 
better fitted for romantic art because it is able to show, by aid of 
colour, the feelings and emotions of the soul. § 232. Music not 
confined to a single moment in its portrayal of an action, like 
sculpture, but it can give its genesis and all the steps of complica- 
tion and the denouement ; tones, chords, and counterpoint (c), (d): 
architecture and music do not doal with the human form. § 233. 
Poetry the form of art that unites in itself all the others ; epic, 



xxxiv ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS. 

lyric, and dramatic forms ; comedy and tragedy ; the personages 
of the great poems types of human character ; the education of 
the people chiefly through the vicarious experiences of literary 
personages. 

Chapter XXXIX. — The Psychology of Science and Philoso- 
phy Pp. 876-400. 

§ 235. Science systematized results of observation ; particular 
objects having the form of time reveal only a portion of their poten- 
tialities at a given moment : experience gradually gathers all the 
phases together in the definition of the object : («) science learns 
to see each thing in the perspective of its history ; {I) education 
in science gives directive power to the labourer. § 236. The three 
stages of science: (1) inventorying; (2) study of interrelations; 
(8) comparative history of the science ; (a) and (b) the nature of a 
fact ; it is a relative synthesis, including less or more according 
to the intelligence of the thinker who thinks it ; (c) the entire fact 
to Aristotle would be the entirety of all facts. § 237. Philosophy 
investigates the presuppositions of existence ; it seeks a first prin- 
ciple. § 238. Natural science points toward philosophy as a sort 
of science of sciences. § 239. Philosophy finds the principle of 
causality transcendent — i. e., it contains as its nucleus origination 
or self-activity ; philosophy does not inventory anything, it as- 
sumes the inventory already made, and tries to explain it by the 
first principle. § 240. Philosophy not a science of things in gen- 
eral, but a special kind of knowledge — namely, of the general forms 
found in the world by the several sciences, and the relation of these 
general forms of existence to the first principle. § 241. All philos- 
ophies imply the same first principle, no matter what name is given 
to it ; call it X, and it is assumed as originating all that exists through 
its own activity, and hence must be self -active : {a) the evolution 
theory in its positive aspect ; (&) in its negative aspect. § 242. To 
pass from intellect to will — i. e., from theory to practice — requires 
a philosophic activity of the mind, because deliberation must be 
arrested, the case must be closed before the will acts; the, philo- 
sophic activity is one which closes the inventory and assumes that 
all the facts are in, and then passes judgment regarding their 
bearing on the question ; if the mind kept always in the scientific 
attitude, it would never act ; (r/,) the bearing of the facts as a whole 
is seen by a survey which is taken by the philosophic attitude of 



ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS. xxxv 

the mind ; (5), (c) science in its third stage becomes philosoph- 
ical in its endeavour to discover the relation of each special sci- 
ence to the others ; {d) the working scientific man has to resist 
the tendency to philosophize. § 243. Since philosophy endeav- 
ours to discover the bearing of all the conditioning circumstances 
on a situation, it is ethical. § 244. The iiist stage of science not 
j)ractical, and its results not tending tct action or ethics. § 245. As 
the mediator between the intellect and the will, the philosophical 
attitude always must have a place. § 246. The psychology of the 
history of philosophy; the five intentions of the mind: (I) the 
first intention the most rudimentary form of knowing — namely, 
sense-perception, seizing and holding the fleeting objects of sense 
by means of the universals. § 247. (II) The second intention con- 
templates the universals, classes, or genera, and is the second stage 
of the scientific mind. § 248. (Ill) The third intention is the 
philosophic stage of the mind; it looks to the unity of all univer- 
sals in a first principle. § 249. (IV) The fourth intention is that 
of philosophical scepticism ; it observes method and criticises the 
third intention by showing inadequacy in the demonstrations of 
the first principle. § 250. (V) The fifth intention refutes sceptical 
philosophy by showing method as a whole, and proving the first 
principle, not by ontological steps, but by finding one by one the 
presuppositions of each and every sceptical argument, these being 
psychological attitudes ; when every sceptical attitude is shown 
to presuppose the result of the ontological proof of the third in- 
tention, philosophy is re-established on a firm basis : {a) Fichte's 
version of Kant's criticism; (b) Hegel's discovery of the presup- 
position of the ethical foundation of Kant's Practical Reason; 
(c) Hegel's logic. 



Price, $1.50, postpaid. 
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PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS OF 
EDUCATION. 



mTKODUCTION". 

§ 1. It is said that ttie teacher needs to know 
psychology because it is his business to educate the 
mind. And it is true that in his vocation he is con- 
stantly occupied with a critical observation of the 
mind in a few of its aspects. For this is necessary 
in order to manage a school successfully. The teacher 
must observe the pupil's grasp of the topic of his les- 
son. He must interpret the pupil's behaviour by 
such knowledge as he can attain of his disposition and 
the spirit of his intentions; he must assign lessons 
of a length suited to the mental capacities which he 
knows his pupils to possess; he must grade them in 
classes according to his knowledge of those capaci- 
ties; he must arrange a course of study in accord- 
ance with the laws of mental development. 

§ 2. If the teacher knows nothing of psychology 



2 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS OF EDUCATION. 

as a science, he must copy in detail the methods of 
others, and rely on his general knowledge of human 
nature derived from experience. Like all unedu- 
cated workmen, he m.ay succeed after a sort by fol- 
lowing tradition unaided by science, but he will not 
develop beyond a narrow degree of perfection in 
details. He will have no insight into the general 
relations of his work. He can not safely deviate from 
routine, nor venture to criticise his own work or the 
work of others. If he has learned good models, he 
may pass for a good teacher; if he has learned bad 
ones, he is unable to perceive their defects. Possess- 
ing no scientific knowledge of the mind, he can not 
lift himself above the details of his art to the prin- 
ciples which govern them, and become himself an 
original source of directive energy. Some knowledge 
of the mind every successful teacher must have, al- 
though in so many cases it is unsystematic, and con- 
sequently unscientific. Ordinary experience differs 
from science through its lack of completeness and 
consistency. It is fragmentary and disconnected. 
Science compensates the inequalities of individual 
experience by re-enforcing it with the aggregate of all 
other experiences. 

§ 3. Psychology is of two kinds: empirical and 
rational. 



INTRODUCTION. 3 

(a) Empirical psychology aims to inventory the 
facts of mind and to arrange them systematically, so 
that each fact may help to explain all other facts, and 
in its turn be explained by all. 

(h) Rational psychology, on the other hand, deals 

with the philosophical presuppositions of mental life, 

with what may be investigated a priori, and is found 

to be necessarily, rather than accidentally, true. 

It is confessed that psycholog-y has hitherto borne the 
reputation of being* the driest and least interesting* of 
all the sciences. This is partly due to the circumstance 
that an inventory of facts of consciousness contains only 
what is already familiar to us in the fragmentary form of 
experience. It seems a waste of time to g"o over and col- 
lect with so much painstaking" what is already knovv^n. 
Other sciences collect fresh and interesting- facts. Psy- 
cholog-y by introspection seems to be a sterile occupation, 
dealing- with what is trite and stale. But this is not so. 
Introspection begins with this dull process of inventory- 
ing the already familiar facts of mind, but it forthwith 
proceeds to the second and higher process of reflecting 
on the g-eneral form of our mental processes. It then 
enters on a field of generalization entirely unknown to 
ordinary consciousness and full of astonishing results. 
By reflecting on the forms of mental activity, we enter the 
province of rational psychology, and come for the first 
time to see the real nature of mind. We begin to discern 
those most important of all fruits of human knowledge — • 
the truths that sit supreme as directive powers on the 
throne of life — the truths of God, freedom, and immor- 
tality. 

§ 4. Here we are reminded that there are two 
hostile schools of psychology. There is one founded 



4 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS OF EDUCATION. 

■upon physiology, wliicli attempts to explain mind 
as a function of the body. It condemns introspec- 
tion, and teaches that the sonl has no subsistence 
apart from the body: all individuality is corporeal. 
The other school, founded on introspection, contends 
that true individuality is not corporeal by any possi- 
bility. The corporeal is moved by external forces, 
and is divisible, changeable, and perishable, while 
self-active energy, which is the substance of mind, 
is incorporeal and the source of all individuality. It 
denies, moreover, that any really psychical facts may 
be discovered by external observation — by taste, 
smell, touch, hearing, or seeing. To understand this 
stricture on the physiological view, we must take 
notice of the broad distinction that exists be- 
tween external and internal observation. There 
are two distinct and thoroughly marked attitudes 
of mind. The first is directed outward to the 
facts in space, and may be called objective per- 
ception, or sense-perception. Its characteristic is 
found in the circumstance that it always sees things 
as related to environments. To it all things are de- 
pendent and relative. The other attitude of mind is 
directed within, and beholds the self -activities of the 
mind itself. Self -activity is essentially different from 
relative and dependent being, because it does not 



INTRODUCTION. 5 

receive its determinations from its environment, but 
originates tliem itself, in the form of feelings, voli- 
tions, and tliouglits. All objects of introspection 
belong to one of these three classes, and every possi- 
ble feeling, idea, or volition is a determination of an 
activity which is, so to speak, polarized into subject 
and object. Each feeling, idea, or volition is the prod- 
uct of an energy which is both subject and object: it is 
therefore said to be self-determined. "While external 
observation sees its object as separated into thing and 
environment, or effect and cause, internal observation 
sees its object as one unity containing both effect and 
cause in one. It is what Spinoza called causa sui. 
This is true individuality — called by Aristotle " en- 
telechy," and by Leibnitz the " monad." Be this as 
it may, all must concede that no form of external 
experience applies or can apply to internal experi- 
ence; our apparatus for observing material objects 
can not perceive feelings or thoughts. This being 
so, it is evident that physiological psychology can 
make no progress whatever without introspection. It 
is limited to noting the relation of concomitance and 
succession between two orders of observation, the 
objects of the one being movements and changes of 
organic matter, and the objects of the other being 
feelings, ideas, and volitions. The progress of this 



6 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS OF EDUCATION. 

science will be marked with approximating accuracy 
in locating and defining physiological functions as 
connected with mental activities. 

There has been recognised from the first an intercon- 
nection between the mind and the body. Decapitation has 
always been recognised as a means of disconnecting the 
mind from the body. Alcohol, tobacco, coffee, opium, and 
many other drugs have been used since prehistoric times 
for their supposed mental effects — effects negative rather 
than positive, as they dull the action of the nerves of 
sensation or diminish the mental control over the nerves 
of motion, and thereby allay the pain of weariness or the 
worry that arises from a vivid consciousness of the outer 
world. Physiology is engaged in determining more pre- 
cisely the location of such effects and their extent, al- 
though it will not discover how the corporeal becomes 
mental or how the external becomes internal, for the rea- 
son that objective experience can never perceive thoughts 
and feelings, yet it will yield rich results in all depart- 
ments wherein the mind uses the body as an instrument 
to gain knowledge or to execute its volitions. Insanity, 
idiocy, the use and abuse of the five organs of sense, all 
that relates to the proper care of the body, the influence of 
age, sex, climate, race, the phenomena of sleep, dreams, 
somnambulism, catalepsy — whatever relates to these and 
the like important topics will receive elucidation, and, 
more especially, educational theory will be enriched by 
investigations of the causes of arrested development. 

§ 5. It is believed that arrested development of 
the higher mental and moral faculties is caused in 
many cases by the school. The habit of teaching 
with too much thoroughness and too long-continued 
drill the semi-mechanical branches of study, such as 



INTRODUCTION. 7 

arithmetic, spelling, the discrimination of colours, the 
observation of surface and solid forms, and even the 
distinctions of formal grammar, often leaves the pupil 
fixed in lower stages of growth and unable to exercise 
the higher functions of thought. 

It is necessary to ascertain the effect of every sort of 
training" or method of instruction upon the further growth 
of the child. For instance, do methods of teaching- arith- 
metic by the use of blocks, objects, and other illustrative 
material advance the child or retard him in his ability 
to master the higher branches of mathematics? What 
effect upon the pupil's ability to understand motives and 
actions in history does g-reat thoroug-hness in arithmetical 
instruction have? For instance, does it make any* differ- 
ence whether there is only one lesson in arithmetic a day, 
or one each in written arithmetic and in mental arith- 
metic? Does a careful training- in discriminating- fine 
shades of colour and in naming them, continued for twen- 
ty weeks to half a year in the primary school, perma- 
nently set the mind of the pupil toward the mischievous 
habit of observing tints of colour to such an extent as 
to make the mind oblivious of differences in form or shape, 
and especially inattentive to relations which arise from 
the interaction of one object upon another? Questions 
of this kind are endless in number, and they relate directly 
to the formation of the course of study and the school 
programme. They can not be settled by rational or a 
priori psychology, but only by careful experimental study. 
In the settlement of these questions one is to expect great 
assistance from the laboratories of physiological psychol- 
ogy. — Notwithstanding the efficiency of the school to help 
the child enter upon the fruits of civilization, it is to be 
feared that to the school is due very much arrested de- 
velopment. In our day numerous and concerted efforts 
are made to study the child with a view to throw light on 



8 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS OF EDUCATION. 

educational methods. Not very much success in this line 
of investigation can be expected, however, from those 
enthusiasts in child-study vs^ho do not as yet know^ the 
alphabet of rational psychology. Those who can not dis- 
criminate the three kinds of thinking are not likely to 
recognise them in their study of children. Those who 
have no idea of arrested development will not be likely 
to undertake the careful and delicate observations which 
explain why certain children stop growing at various 
points in different studies, and require patient and perse- 
vering effort on the part of the teacher to help them 
over their mental difficulties. The neglected child who 
lives the life of a street Arab has become cunning and self- 
helpful, but at the expense of intellect and morals. Child- 
study should take up his case and make a thorough inven- 
tory of his capacities and limitations, and learn the pro- 
cesses by which these have developed. Child-study in this 
way will furnish us more valuable information for the 
conduct of our schools than any other fields of investiga- 
tion have yet done. 

§ 6. In rational psychology we learn that there 
are three stages of the development of the thinking 
power. The first stage is that of sense-perception; its 
form of thinking conceives all objects as having in- 
dependent being and as existing apart from all rela- 
tion to other objects. It would set up an atomic 
theory of the universe if it were questioned closely. 
The second stage of knowing is that which sees every- 
thing as depending upon the environment. Every- 
thing is relative, and can not exist apart from its re- 
lations to other things. The theory of the universe 
from this stage of thinking is pantheistic. There is 



INTRODUCTION. 9 

one absolute unity of all things, and this unity alone 
is independent, and all else is dependent. Things 
are phenomenal and the unity is the absolute. Pan- 
theism conceives the universe as one vast sea of being, 
in which the particular waves lose their individuality 
after a brief manifestation. The third stage of think- 
ing arrives at the insight that true being is self -active 
or self-determined. True being is therefore self-con- 
scious being, and exists as intellect and will; all else 
is phenomenal being. On this insight depend the 
doctrines of God, freedom, and immortality. They 
may be held, it is true, by a kind of blind faith, 
when one's thinking is in the first or second stage, 
but such faith is unstable, because it is contra- 
dicted by its mental conviction. The most impor- 
tant end of intellectual education is to take the pupil 
safely through the world theory of the first and 
second stages — namely, sense-perception and the rela- 
tivity doctrine — up to the insight into the personal 
nature of the absolute. All parts and pieces of school 
education and all other education should have in view 
this development of the intellect. 

The two attitudes of mind in observation spoken of in 
§ 4 correspond roughly to the second and third stages of 
thinking here described and more fully discussed in Chap- 
ter IV. The negative conditions of mental unfolding will 



10 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS OF EDUCATION. 

be discovered and defined by empirical psychology. But 
that which is an original energy can not be explained by 
its environment because it is independent; nor is it, strict- 
I3' speaking, correlated to the body, although it uses it in 
sense-perception and in volition as an instrument of com- 
munication w^ith the outer world. 



PIEST PART. 

PSYCHOLOGIC METHOD, 
11 



FIRST PART. 

PSYCHOLOGIC METHOD. 

§ 7. In Part I of this work the chief themes of 
educational psychology are treated nnsystematically, 
the main object being to develop the several apergus 
or insights which furnish the method of such psychol- 
ogy. The use of method to build a strict system is 
left for Part II, for the insight into a systematic pro- 
cedure requires more mental grasp than the under- 
standing of a principle or a method. But all in- 
sights in this department of inquiry are difficult to 
reach. Hence the importance of postponing what- 
ever relates to a complete system, if it is possible, 
until the student gets some familiarity with the sim- 
pler aspects of the principle which furnishes the 
method. That principle will be found to be self- 
determination. How its development unites the 
phases of the intellect and the intellect to the will, 
and how both arise from feeling and return into it, 

will be discussed in Part 11. Certain inquiries into 

13 



14 PSYCHOLOGIC METHOD. 

the application of psychology to the settlement of 
practical questions in education are reserved for 
Part III. 



CHAPTEE I. 
What is meant hy Educational Psychology? 

§ 8. All activities of man have an internal or 
mental side, even when they are directed upon the 
external world. There is a mental or subjective co- 
efficient as well as an objective one. The mind acts 
and reacts in all manner of human deeds. Hence 
everything relating to man has a psychological ele- 
ment in it and is in so far educative. There is a psy- 
chology to sociology and to individual biography. 
There is a psychology of the family, the industrial 
community, the state, the Church, and also of the 
school. There is a psychology of each branch of 
study — grammar, arithmetic, history, poetry, art, 
philosophy. The business of psychology is to find 
this subjective coefficient wherever it exists. Edu- 
cational psychology deals with all phases of the 
action and reaction of the mind by itself or in the 
presence of objects, by which the mind develops or 
unfolds, or is arrested, or degenerates. 



EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 15 

Psychology in general deals with mind and mental 
phenomena. In untechnical speech, soul, spirit, reason, 
intelligence are used as synonyms of mind. Feeling, intel- 
lect, and will are said to be the different forms of activity 
of mind. Psychology investigates the forms of mental 
activity and their development or evolution. The word 
" development " suggests the phase of psychology which 
is of chief interest to education. Psychology as a general 
science is interested in all phases of mental processes and 
results. Education is interested especially in methods of 
mental development, and in the ideals of perfection that 
can be attained. Education attempts to change what is 
into what ought to be; it seeks to realize an ideal. As such 
it is rather an art than a science; but, of course, there is a 
science of education — that is to say, a science of the sub- 
ject-matter, the aims and the methods which belong to 
the art of education. This science of education has to 
draw from psychology one of its most important elements 
— the theory of the method of developing the mind. Its 
ideals are derived from religion, political history, litera- 
ture, and ethics, j)roximately at least. But ethics itself 
is more or less based on psychology. Psychology, in fact, 
is so fundamental that it conditions," in large measure, all 
the sciences based on the spiritual nature of man — ethics, 
theology, politics, sociology, aesthetics, and all forms of 
philosophy. Our question involves many considerations; 
for instance, the question of the relation of psychology 
to physiology. Physiology is the science of living bodies. 
Is mind only a function of a living body, or is it an indi- 
viduality wholly spiritual? Certainly all must admit that 
there is interaction — that the condition of the body affects 
the manifestation of feeling, knowing, and willing, being 
favourable or unfavourable to such manifestation. On the 
other hand, the operations of feeling, knowing, and willing 
affect various bodily functions, retarding some and accel- 
erating others. For how many thousand years has man- 
kind known and prized the stimulants and narcotics for 
their influence on the mind? Alcohol, tobacco, coffee, tea, 
opium, betel, hasheesh — all have been sought for their psy- 



16 PSYCHOLOGIC METHOD. 

chical effects. Whether their influence is positive or negfa- 
tive, whether stimulants furnish so-called mental force, 
or whether they simply paralyze or benumb the body so 
as to relieve the mind of the distraction which a conscious- 
ness of its physical org-ans occasions (especially to acutely 
nervous persons), this, we see, is a crucial question. In § 4 
this topic has already been alluded to and the suggestion 
made that the influence of stimulants is negative rather 
than positive. " Physiological psychology," as it chooses 
to call itself, has a great field for investigation. But even 
if the soul is only a bodily function, it is certain that 
physiology can not make any progress without borrow- 
ing at every step the data derived from psychology by 
introspection. For feeling, knowing, and volition are, 
as already pointed out, not matters of external observa- 
tion, but only of internal observation or introspection. 
Physiology, like other natural sciences, conducts its in- 
vestigations by the aid of external observation, mapping 
out provinces in the world, inventorying their contents, 
and finally classifying and systematizing facts by relating 
them to principles. By principles I mean energies acting 
according to laws: a cause that explains a phenomenon 
is a principle. But to external observation there is no 
psychical fact visible. We can behold things occupying 
space, and events or actions filling time, but we can not 
see a feeling with the eye nor hear it with the ear; nor 
can we taste it, or smell it, or touch it. A feeling can be 
perceived only by consciousness. So, too, the processes 
of knowing and willing can not be perceived except by 
consciousness. The most that physiological psychology 
can do is to investigate the relations of two orders of ob- 
servation. It must compare the facts of physiology, the 
changes of the body, wdth the facts of mental action in 
the form of feelings, thoughts, and volitions. Introspec- 
tion is therefore utterly indispensable to physiological 
psychology. 



WHAT IS INTROSPECTION! Vt 

CHAPTEE II. 
What is Introspection? 

§ 9. Inteospection is internal observation — our 
consciousness of the activity of the mind itself. The 
subject who observes is the object observed. Con- 
sciousness is knowing of self. This seems to be the 
characteristic of mind and mental phenomena — there 
is always some degree of self -relation ; there is self- 
feeling or self-knowledge. Even in mere life — in the 
vegetative soul — there is self -relation : this we shall 
study as our chief object of interest in psychology. 
We shall note first the contrast between external and 
internal observation. Outward observation is object- 
ive perception or sense-perception. It perceives things 
and environments. Things are always relative to 
their environment. Things are therefore dependent 
beings. They stand in causal relation to other things, 
and if moved are moved from without by external 
forces. Introspection, or internal observation, on the 
other hand, perceives the activity of the mind, and 
this is self-activity, and not a movement caused by 
external forces. Feelings, thoughts, volitions, are 
phases of self -activity. This we shall consider more 



18 PSYCHOLOGIC METHOD. 

in detail. Let us note that a feeling, a tliouglit, or a 
volition implies subject and object. I feel a sensa- 
tion of pain or a desire for food. There is a self that 
feels the pain or the desire, and an object that is felt. 
I think of the relation between the angles of a tri- 
angle and its sides — there is a self that thinks and an 
object thought. So I will an act — the self wills and 
the act is its object. Each is an activity, and an activ- 
ity of the self. External perception does not perceive 
any self. It perceives only what is extended in time 
and space and what is consequently multiple, what is 
moved by something else and not self-moved. If it 
beholds living objects, it does not behold the self that 
animates the body, but only the body that is organ- 
ically formed by the self. But introspection beholds 
the self. 

This is a very important distinction between the two 
orders of observation, external and internal. The former 
can perceive only phenomena, the latter can perceive 
noumena. The former can perceive only what is relative, 
and dependent on something- else; the latter can perceive 
what is independent and self-determined, a primary cause 
and source of movement. To pass from the first order of 
observation, which perceives external things, to the second 
order of observation, which perceives self-activity, is to 
take a great step. We are dimly conscious of our entire 
mental activity, but we do not (until we have acquired 
psychologic skill) distinguish and separately identify its 
several phases. It is the same in the outer world: we 
know many things in ordinary consciousness, but only 



WHAT IS INTROSPECTION? 19 

in science do we unite the items of our knowledge sys- 
tematically so as to make each assist in the explanation 
of all. Common knowledge lacks unity and system. In 
the inner world, too, there is common introspection, un- 
systematized and devoid of unity — the light of our ordi- 
nary consciousness. But there is a higher scientific intro- 
spection which discovers both unity and system. 

§ 10. The scientific view finds the general or uni- 
versal. First, it discovers classes; next, laws; then 
causal principles. Science inventories facts, identify- 
ing them as falling under classes. Then it goes back 
of the idea of class and regards the energy that pro- 
duces a class of facts by continual action according 
to a fixed form. This fixed form of action is called 
law. It rises above the idea of law to the idea of pur- 
pose or adaptation to end. That is to say, it discovers 
evolution or progressive development. In the view 
of evolution there is a goal toward which relatively 
lower orders are progressing, and the facts, forces, 
and laws are seen as parts of a great world-process 
which explains all. At this point science rises into 
philosophy. Philosophy is science which investigates 
all facts and phenomena in view of a final or ulti- 
mate principle — the first principle of the universe. 
When science comes to study all objects in view of 
the principle of evolution, it has transcended the stage 
of mind whose highest object is to discover classes; 
likewise the stage that makes law an ultimate. Be- 



20 PSYCHOLOGIC METHOD. 

sides efficient cause, whicli makes or produces some 
new state or condition, there is '^ final cause " or pur- 
pose — design or '^ end and aim.'' The theory of evo- 
lution takes into consideration this idea of the " end 
and aim " of changes in Nature. It ranges or ranks 
all phenomena according to their development or real- 
ization of an ideal. 'Now it is evident that purpose, 
design, or " final cause " is an ideal that can have 
existence (i. e., conscious existence) for a being only 
in so far as it is a soul or mind. A living being like 
a plant, which can grow but not feel, does not per- 
ceive or feel its ideal, and yet its ideal guides and 
directs the activity of its efficient cause or active force. 
The ideal is only '^ law " to the plant. But in the 
lowest form of animal life there is a feeling of want 
— that is to say, the want of an ideal condition differ- 
ent from its real. We can observe even the lowest 
animals moving in order to adjust themselves to the 
environment, or to appropriate the environment for 
food. As an external phenomenon we should never 
be able to explain such movements, because we can 
not perceive ideals with our external senses. We in- 
terpret such movements through our own introspec- 
tion. We can feel wants and be conscious of mo- 
tives. We ascribe these wants and motives to animals 
and men around us. Cliiford calls such attribution 



WHAT IS INTROSPECTION? 21 

of motives to other beings " ejects.'' To recognise 
another being as having a subject or self like our- 
selves is not merely to perceive an object, but an 
" eject." We can therefore recognise in a being the 
existence of introspection in the form of feeling, or 
in some higher form, only because we exercise the 
activity of introspection ourselves. 

Strang-e as it may appear, therefore, we conduct even 
external observation by means of introspection. Natural 
science in adopting- the theory of evolution advances to 
the stage w^herein it makes it its chief object to recognise 
development from a lower stage toward a higher — the 
progressive realization of an ideal. The ideal is uncon- 
scious in the inorganic world and in the plant world, but 
acts only as law or as vitality. In the animal world it is 
conscious of this ideal, and feels it as appetite or repre- 
sents it in the form of a mental image. To recognise an 
animal is to perceive an " eject," as W. Kingdon Clifford 
explains in his essay on The Nature of Things-in-them- 
selves. 

§ 11. The evolution theory recognises introspec- 
tion as existing in the objective world — it sees in Ma- 
ture a tendency to develop such beings as possess in- 
ternality and energize to realize their ideals. It is 
curious to note that this movement in science begins 
by the utter repudiation of what is called teleology; 
i. e., it sets aside the old doctrine of design which 
looked for marks of external adaptation of IN'ature to 
ulterior spiritual uses — such external design as one 



22 PSYCHOLOGIC METHOD. 

finds in a watch, where the various parts are artificially 
adapted to produce what they never would have pro- 
duced naturally. Such external teleology ignored 
the immanent teleology of Nature. By rejecting the 
old mechanical teleology, which makes ISTature a ma- 
chine in the hand of God, evolution has come to see 
the teleology which God has breathed into [N'ature — 
to see, in short, that Nature is through and through 
teleological. Nature is, in every particle of it, gov- 
erned by ideals. Matter is heavy, and falls, for ex- 
ample, only because it obeys an ideal — an ideal of 
which it is entirely unconscious, and yet which is 
manifested in it in the form of weight. Gravity is 
the manifestation of the unity of one body with an- 
other. The unity is ideal or potential, but its mani- 
festation is real force, real attraction. 

This subject of introspection thus leads out to the 
end of the world, and reappears underneath the method 
of modern natural science, which studies all objects in 
their history — in their evolution. Strangely enough, the 
scientists of the present day defery in psychology what 
they call the " introspective method." And just as in the 
case of the repudiation of teleology, they are bound to 
return to some other form of what they repudiate. Re- 
nounce teleology, and you find nothing but teleology in 
everything. Renounce introsi^ection, and you are to find 
introspection the fundamental moving principle of all 
Nature. All things have their explanation in a blind at- 
tempt on the part of Nature to look at itself. Nature, said 
Plotinus (Ennead III, book viii, chapter iii), is philothea- 



WHAT IS SELF-ACTIYITY? 23 

mon, or greedy of beholding* herself. A blind tendency in 
Nature to develop some ideal implies as its logical con- 
dition a completely realized ideal in the absolute first 
principle through which Nature is given its being. If 
Nature is evolution — a process moving toward self-con- 
sciousness — it is no complete and independent process, but 
a means used by an absolute personal being — God — for the 
creation of living souls in his own image. 



CHAPTER III. 

What is Self -activity? 

§ 12. What is the great central fact to be kept 
in view in the study of the mind? To this question 
there is only one answer — it is self -activity. But the 
answer is likely to be a sphinx riddle to the beginner. 
Who has not heard it often repeated that the end 
and aim of education is to arouse self -activity in the 
pupil? And yet who means anything by that word? 
The moment that one calls attention to its true impli- 
cation he is met by the objection: It is impossible to 
conceive the origination of activity; it is impossible 
to frame a concept of what is both subject and object 
at the same time; self -activity and self -consciousness 
are inconceivable. ^' The words exist, it is true, but 
the mind is unable to realize in thought what is signi- 



24 PSYCHOLOGIC METHOD. 

fled by them." Herbert Spencer (First Principles, 
page 65 of first edition) says of self -consciousness : 
^' Clearly a true cognition of self implies a state in 
whicli the knowing and known are one, in which the 
subject and object are identified; and this Mr. Man- 
sell rightly holds to be the annihilation of both.'' Just 
the difiiculty found in the conception of self-con- 
sciousness is found in that of self-activity. We can 
not form a mental picture of self -activity, nor of self- 
consciousness. We can not picture an activity in 
which the origin is also the point of return. But this 
does not surprise us so much when we learn that we 
can not form a mental picture of any activity of any 
kind whatever. We can not picture even a move- 
ment in space, although we may picture the two places 
between which the motion occurs. So, too, becoming 
and change can not be pictured in the mind, although 
we may picture the states of being before and after 
the transition. We may picture an object as here 
or there, but not as moving. The ancient sceptics 
expressed this fact by denying motion altogether. 
" A thing," said they, " can not move where it is, 
because it is there already, and of course it can not 
move where it is not; hence it can not move at all." 

The unwary listener who supposes that he is think- 
ing" the elements of the problem when he merely exercises 



WHAT IS SELF-ACTIVITY? 25 

his imag-ination, finds himself drawn into a logical con- 
clusion that contradicts all his experience. To deny mo- 
tion, in fact, makes experience impossible. Take all 
motion out of the world and there could be no experience; 
for experience involves motion in the subject that per- 
ceives, or in the object perceived, or in both. And yet we 
can not form a mental picture of motion or chang-e. We 
picture different states or conditions of an object that is 
underg-oing' change, and different positions occupied by 
a moving- thing. But the element of change and motion 
we do not picture. 

§ 13. It is not surprising that we can not form 
for ourselves a mental picture of self-activity, since 
we are unable to picture in our minds any sort of 
activity, movement, or change. And yet, as before 
stated, the thought of motion, change, and activity is 
necessary to explain the world of experience — nay, 
even to perceive or observe it. So, too, the thought 
of self-activity is necessary in order to explain mo- 
tion, change, and activity. 

To make this clear, consider the following: (a) That 
which moves, moves either because it is impelled to move 
by another, or because it impels itself to move. (&) In the 
latter case, that of self-impulsion, we have self-activity at 
once, (g) In the former case, that of impulsion through 
another, we have self-activity implied as origin of the 
motion. Either the one which moves it is directly self- 
active, or else it receives and transmits, without originat- 
ing, the energy causing motion, (d) Were there no origi- 
nating source of movement it is obvious that there could 
be no motion to transmit. Suppose, for once, that all 
things received and transmitted, and yet none originated 
energy. Then all phenomena of movement would be de- 



26 PSYCHOLOGIC METHOD. 

rived, but from no source; all would be effects, but ef- 
fected by no cause. The chain of transmitting links may- 
be infinite in extent, but it is only an infinite effect with- 
out a cause. Here we contradict ourselves. If there is no 
self-active cause from which the energy proceeds, and 
from which it is received by the infinite transmitting* 
series, then that series does not derive its energy, but 
originates it and is self-active. Hence self-activity must 
be either within the series or outside it, and in any case 
self-activity is the essential idea presupposed as the logical 
condition of any thought of motion whatever. 

§ 14. We have been obliged to discuss at length 
this notion of self-activity in order to prepare the 
road for genuine psychological observation. If the 
reader denies the existence of self-activity, he is un- 
prepared to see or observe it, and psychology does 
not and can not exist for him so long as he holds con- 
sistently to his denial. He may make some progress 
in the study of physics, perhaps, but he can not learn 
even the physiology of plants or animals without the 
idea of self-activity. He may study anatomy as the 
structure of dead bodies, but he can not study life 
and organism without recognising self-activity in 
one of its forms — assimilation, sensation, volition, 
thought. Of course psychology is impossible to him 
when he can not even enter physiology. 

§ 15. What phenomena are attributed to self- 
activity? In the first place, we recognise it in plants. 
All human observation, whether of civilized or of 



WHAT IS SELF-ACTIVITY? 27 

savage peoples, takes note of self -activity in the phe- 
nomena of vegetation. The plant grows, puts out 
new buds, leaves, branches, blossoms, fruit; adds 
layers to its thickness, extends its roots. It does this 
by its own activity, and its grow^th is not the effect 
of some outside being, although outside conditions 
must be favourable or else the energy of the plant 
is not able to overcome the obstacle. The plant must 
grow by adding to itself matter that it takes up from 
its environment — water, salts, carbon, etc. I^otice 
that the plant-energy attacks its surroundings of air, 
moisture, and earth, and appropriates to itself its en- 
vironment after transforming it. One may admit 
that the environment acts on the plant, but he must 
contend for the essential fact that the plant reacts on 
its environment, originating motion itself, and meet- 
ing and modifying external influences. The plant 
builds its structure according to an ideal model ; not a 
conscious model, of course. Its shape and size, its 
roots and branches, its leaves and flowers and fruit, 
resemble the ideal (model or type) of its kind or spe- 
cies, and not the ideal of some other species. The 
self-activity of the plant is manifested in action 
upon its environment, which results in building up 
its own individuality. It not only acts, but acts 
for itself; it is self -related. Again, notice that the 



28 PSYCHOLOGIC METHOD. 

plant ' acts destructively on other things, and strips 
off their individuality and transforms their sub- 
stance into its own tissue, making it into vegetable 
cells. 

The self-activity of the plant is then a formative 
power that can conquer other forms and impose its 
own form upon them. 

§ 16. In the next place, consider the kind of en- 
ergy that we call the self-activity in animals. The 
individual animal is also a formative energy, destroy- 
ing other forms, eating up plants, for example, con- 
suming the oxygen of the air, and making over the 
matter into animal cells. But the animal shows 
self -activity in other ways. It not only appropriates 
and assimilates, but it moves its limbs and feels. In 
the plant there is movement of circulation and 
growth, and this is also found in the animal. But 
locomotion is a new feature of self-activity. It en- 
ables the animal to change his environment. The 
animal can use some part of itself as an instrument 
for providing food, or as a lever by which to move its 
whole body. Self-activity is manifested also in loco- 
motion, and especially in its conformity to design or 
purpose. The animal moves in order to realize a pur- 
pose. With purpose or design, we have reached in- 
ternality. 



WHAT IS SELF-ACTIVITY? 29 

Purpose or design implies a distinction between what 
is and what is not. The lowest and blindest feeling- that 
exists deals with this discrimination. Pleasure and pain, 
comfort and discomfort, appetite and aversion, all imply 
discrimination between one's organism and the environ- 
ment, as well as between the organism as it is and the 
organism as it should be. There is in all feeling a dis- 
crimination of limit and a passing beyond limit. This 
transcending of the limit to the organism by the self- 
activity constitutes sensibility. However obscure this may 
appear at first, it will grow clear and clearer upon further 
study. 

§ 17. Feeling is an activity; it is a self -activity ; 
it is like assimilation or digestion, a reaction against 
an environment. The environment negates or limits 
the organism; feeling perceives the limitation, or 
discriminates itself as organism from its not-self as 
environment. Feeling, therefore, . transcends its or- 
ganism, and nnites two factors — organic self and 
environment. The self moves in order to relieve itself 
of the pain or discomfort attending this negative 
action of the environment. Hnnger and cold, all 
varieties of appetite and desire, have this elemental 
discrimination between organism and environment, 
and a further discrimination between the being of 
the self and the non-being of the self, so that some- 
thing not yet existent (some ideal state) is presented. 
This presentation of the ideal is the essential ele- 
ment in desire and sensation, as well as in all 



30 PSYCHOLOGIC METHOD. 

tiglier forms of self-activity, say of thought and 
will. 

It is important to recognise the existence of dis- 
crimination in this lowest stage of blind feeling — the most 
rudimentary animal soul. Feeling, in the act of discrimi- 
nating between the existing self and its possible self, is 
constructive ideally, for it repeats to itself its limitation. 
The limit to its organism exists, and it is in interaction 
with its environment. But the self-activity in this higher 
phase of feeling (higher than the vegetative function of 
digestion) constructs ideally the limit of the organism 
and changes the limit for other possible limits, compar- 
ing it with them. This comparison of one limit with other 
possible ones is the element of discrimination in feeling. 
All this is automatic or so nearly unconscious as to require 
long and careful introspection to discover it. Feeling is 
not, as it at first seems, a simple activity or passivity, but a 
very complex process. 

§ 18. Sensation is an ideal reproduction of the 
actual limit to the organism. It involves also the 
simultaneous production of other possible limitations, 
and hence contains a reference to itself, a feeling of 
self in its total capacity. On a background, so to 
speak, of the general possibility of feeling is marked 
off this particular limit which reproduces or repre- 
sents the existent. The contrast between it and the 
general potentiality of feeling is the birth of purpose 
or design, and (glancing upward) of all the ideals 
that arise in the human soul, moral, aesthetic, and re- 
ligious. Self-activity as assimilation or digestion 



WHAT IS SELF-ACTIVITY? 3l 

(vegetative soul), as feeling and locomotion (animal 
soul), and as thinking (human soul), is to be studied 
as the fundamental unity of psychology and physi- 
ology. It is not in itself an object of external ob- 
servation, although external observation offers us phe- 
nomena that we explain by assuming self-activity as 
the individuality which causes them. Self-activity 
itself we perceive in ourselves by introspection. When 
we look within we become aware of free energy which 
acts as subject and object under the forms of feeling, 
thought, and volition. Becoming acquainted with 
the characteristic of these activities within ourselves, 
we learn to recognise their manifestations in the ex- 
ternal world. 

A restatement of this theory in Part II of this work 
•will bring out new points of view and assist the reader in 
grasping" it. Undoubtedly the matter is one of the most 
obscure in psychology, because, although very complex, 
nearly all of the process lies below the threshold of con- 
sciousness. In the case of assimilation (or digestion), mere 
vitality, all is unconscious. 



32 PSYCHOLOGIC METHOD. 

CHAPTEK ly. 

The Three Stages of Thought. 

§ 19. The most important discovery ever made in 
psychology is this one of the three ascending steps or 
grades of thought which any one may take with due 
study and meditation. It is attributed to Plato. 

(a) The lowest stage of thinking supposes that its 
objects are all independent one of another. Each 
thing is self -existent, and a ^' solid reality.'' To be 
sure, the mind in this stage thinks relations between 
things, but it places no special value on relations. 
To it things seem to exist apart from relations, and 
relations appear for the most part to be the arbi- 
trary product of thought or reflection. Things, 
it is true, are composite and divisible into smaller 
things, and smaller things are divisible again. All 
things are composed of smallest things or atoms. This 
is the mechanical point of view. This lowest stage of 
thinking, it appears, explains all by the two cate- 
gories of ^^ thing '' and ^^ composition." All differ- 
ences seem to arise through combination or composi- 
tion. But since differences include all that needs 
explanation, it follows that this stage of thinking de- 



THE THREE STAGES OF THOUGHT. 33 

ceives itself in supposing that things are the essential 
elements in its view of the world, and that relations 
are the unessential. A little development of the 
power of thought produces for us the consciousness 
that some relations, at least, are the essential ele- 
ments of our experience. 

§ 20. (h) This first stage of thinking, nearest 
allied to sense-perception, supposes that things are the 
essential elements of all being. The second stage of 
thought, which we may call the understanding, knows 
better what is essential; it regards relations as essen- 
tial. By relations it does not mean arbitrary com- 
parisons, or the result of idle reflections. It has made 
the discovery of truly essential relations. It deals 
with the category of relativity, in short, and goes 
so far as to aflirm that if a grain of sand were to be 
destroyed, all beings in space would be changed more 
or less. Each thing is relative to every other, and there 
is reciprocal or mutual dependence. 

Isaac Newton's thoug'ht of universal gravitation de- 
serves all the fame it has acquired, because it sets up in 
modern thinking- this category of relativity, and all think- 
ing in our day is being- gradually trained into its use by the 
application constantly made of it. Isaac Nev^'ton is thus a 
perpetual schoolmaster to the race. Herbert Spencer ov\'es 
his reputation to his faithful adherence to the thought 
of relativity in his expositions. Our knowledge is all rela- 
tive, says he (with the exception of that very important 



34 PSYCHOLOGIC METHOD. 

knowledge, the knowledge of the principle of relativity 
itself), and things, too, are all relative. Essential rela- 
tivity means dependence. A is dependent on B, so that 
the being of B is also the being of A. Such is the law of 
relativity. This stage of thought refuses to think an 
ultimate concrete principle as origin of all. It says: A 
depends on B; B, again, on C; C on D; and so on, in 
infinite progression. Relativity, as a supreme principle, 
is pantheistic. It makes all being dependent on some- 
thing beyond it. Hence it denies ultimate individual- 
ity. Everything is phenomenal. All individuality is a 
transient result of some underlying abstract principle, a 
" persistent force," for example. Individual things are the 
transient products (static equilibria) of forces. Forces, 
again, are modes of manifestation of some persistent en- 
ergy into which they all vanish. This second stage of 
thinking attains its most perfect form in the doctrine of 
the correlation of forces. It is also the ancient scepticism 
of Pyrrho and Sextus Empiricus. It underlies, too, the 
Buddhist religion and all pantheistic theories of the world. 
Nothing is so common among men of science in our day 
as theories based on relativity. It is often set up by those 
who still hold the non-relational theory of the lower plane 
of thought, though if held with logical strictness it is 
incompatible with the preceding stage. The first stage 
explains by the category of things, or independent non- 
relational beings, while the second stage explains by the 
category of force or essential relation. Take notice that 
force does not need a nucleus of things as a basis of effi- 
cacy; for things are themselves only systems of forces 
held in equilibria by force. 

§ 21. (c) Kelativity presupposes self -relation. 
Self -relation is the category of the reason^ just as rela- 
tivity is the category of the understanding, or non- 
relativity (atomism) the category of sense-perception. 
Dependence implies transference of energy — else how 



THE THREE STAGES OF THOUGHT. 35 

could energy be borrowed? That which originates 

energy is independent being. Reflection discovers 

relativity or dependence, and hence unites beings into 

systems. Deepest reflection discovers total systems 

and the self-determining principles which originate 

systems of dependent being. The reason looks for 

complete, independent, or total beings. Hence the 

reason finds the self -active or its results everywhere. 

Sense-perception is atheistic; it finds each thing- suffi- 
cient for itself — that is to say, self-existent and yet with- 
out self -activity. The understanding- is pantheistic; it 
finds everything- finite and relative, and dependent on an 
absolute that transcends all qualities and attributes — 
" an unknown and unknowable persistent force," which 
is the neg-ative of all particular forces. The reason is the- 
istic because it finds self-activity or self-determination, and 
identifies this with mind. 3Iind is self-activity in a per- 
fect form, while life is the same in a less developed stag-e. 
(This will be discussed in Part II,) Every whole is an in- 
dependent being-, and hence self-determined or self-active. 
Were it not self-determined, it would have no determina- 
tions (qualities, marks, or attributes), and be pure noth- 
ing-; or, having- determinations, it must originate them 
itself or else receive them from outside itself. But in case 
it receives its determinations from outside, it is a depend- 
ent being. Reason sees this disjunctive syllogiem. While 
Buddhism and Brahmanism are religions of the under- 
standing, Christianity is essentially a religion of the rea- 
son, and furnishes a sort of universal education for the 
mind in habits of thinking according to reason. It teaches 
by authority the view-of-the-world that reason thinks. 

§ 22. (d) It has appeared that each of the three 
stages of thinking is a view-of-the-world, and that it is 



36 PSYCHOLOGIC METHOD. 

not a theory of things worn for ornament, so to speak, 
or only on holidays, but a silent presupposition that 
tinges all one's thinking. 

A person may wear his religion on Sabbath days, and 
put it off on week days, possibly. But his view-of-the-world 
shows itself in all that he does. All things take on a dif- 
ferent appearance when viewed by the light of the reason. 
For reason is insight; it " sees all things in God," as 
Malebranche expressed it. For it looks at each thing to 
discover in it the purpose of the whole universe. To see 
the whole in the part is justly esteemed characteristic of 
divine intelligence. — The oft-asserted ability of great men 
of science — that of Cuvier to see the whole animal in a 
single bone of its skeleton — that of Lyell to read the his- 
tory of the Glacial period in a pebble — that of Agassiz 
to recognise the whole fish by one of its scales — that of 
Asa Gray to see all botany in a single plant — these are in- 
dications of the arrival at the third stage of knowing on 
the part of scientific men within their departments. 
Goethe's Homunculus, in the second part of Faust, sym- 
bolizes this power of insight which within a limited sphere 
(its bottle!) is able to recognise the whole in each frag- 
ment. — The spirit of specialization in our time aims to ex- 
haust one by one the provinces of investigation with a 
view to acquire this power to see totalities. This is what 
Plato meant by describing this third stage of thinking as 
a power of knowing-by-wholes (totalities). Learn to com- 
prehend each thing in its entire history: this is the maxim 
of science guided by the reason. Always bear in mind 
that self-activitj'- is the ultimate reality — all dependent 
being is a fragment, the totality is self-active. The things 
of the world all have their explanation in the manifesta- 
tion of self-activity. All is for the development of indi- 
viduality and ultimate fi'ee union of souls in the kingdom 
of God. — To sum up: The lowest thinking activity inven- 
tories things but neglects relations; the middle stage of 



A CONCEPT IS NOT A MENTAL PICTURE. 37 

thinking- inventories relations, forces, and processes, and 
sees thing's in their essences, but neg-lects self-relation or 
totality; the hig-hest stage of thinking" knows that all in- 
dependent being" has the form of life or mind, and that 
the absolute is a person; it studies all thing's to dis- 
cern traces of the creative energ-y which is the form of 
the totality. The theory of evolution rig-htly compre- 
hended as the movement of all thing's in time and space 
toward the development of individuality — that is to say, 
toward a more perfect manifestation or reflection of the 
Creator, who is above time and space — this theory is, prop- 
erly understood, the theory of the reason. The theory 
of gravitation, as a world-view, on the other hand, is that 
of the understanding. 



CHAPTER Y. 

A Concept is not a Mental Picture. 

§ 23. Perceptions relate to individual objects; 
concepts relate to general classes or to abstractions: 
sucli is the current doctrine of psychology. As the 
mental acts of perceiving and conceiving form im- 
portant topics in psychology, we must make several 
studies upon them. It is profitable here to discuss 
the differences between mental images and concepts. 
The origin of general notions will be considered in 
Chapter XI on the third figure of the syllogism. 
Let us^ now take up the inquiry, What constitutes 
•a general notion or concept? To this we may reply 



38 PSYCHOLOGIC METHOD. 

that it is not a mental image, but a definition. My 
general notion tree should include all trees of what- 
ever description, and it is expressed by a defini- 
tion. But no sooner do I attempt to conceive the 
notion tree than I form a mental image. The image, 
however, is not general enough to suit the notion. 
I imagine a particular specimen of a tree — an oak, for 
example. If I imagine it vividly, it is an individual 
just as much as the oak that I may see before me in 
the forest. My concept of tree in general recognises 
the inadequacy of the image, and dismisses it or per- 
mits it to be replaced by another image which pre- 
sents a different specimen. Thus the mental act of 
conceiving uses images only as illustrations or exam- 
ples, and dismisses them as promptly as it calls them 
up. It breaks images as well as makes them. Per- 
haps we have never noticed this relation of images to 
the concept. We are conscious of only a few phases 
of our mental activity until we have cultivated our 
powers of introspection. Notice carefully the art of 
realizing any general concept. We shall discover that 
our definition is a sort of rule for the formation of im- 
ages, rather than an image.* What concept do we 
form of bird? We think of a flying animal — of 

* Dr. J. H. Stirling has suggested this. 



A CONCEPT IS NOT A MENTAL PICTURE. 39 

feathers, wings, bills, claws, and various appurtenances 
Avliicli we unite in the idea of bird. We call up im- 
ages and dismiss them as we go over the elements of 
our definition, for we recognise the images to be too 
special or particular to correspond to the concept. 

In the rudest and least developed intellects, whether 
of savages or children, the same process is repeated. Is 
this a bird? Yes; it has a bill, claws, feathers, wings, 
etc. But it does not have either of these in general. Its 
bill is a particular specimen of bill, having one of the 
many shapes, or colours, or magnitudes possible to a bill. 
So, too, of its feathers, wings, claws, etc. The image of 
our bird was not of a bird in general, but of a hawk or 
duck, a hen or pigeon, or of some other species of birds. 
Nor was the image that of a hawk or a duck, etc., in 
general, but of a particular variety; and not even of a 
variety in general, but finally of a possible or remembered 
individual specimen of a variety. So, too, the features of 
the bird are only individual specimens or examples that 
fall under the general conception of claws, feathers, bills, 
wings, etc. The definition which we have formed for our- 
selves serves as a rule by which we form an image that 
will illustrate it, noticing at the same time the defects of 
each image. This difference between the concept and the 
specimen is known to the child and the savage, though 
it is not consciously reflected upon. Take up a different 
class of concepts. Take the abstractions of colour, taste, 
smell, sound, or touch; for example, redness, sourness, 
fragrance, loudness, hardness, etc. Our concept includes 
infinite degrees of possible intensity, while our image or 
recalled experience is of some definite degree, and does 
not correspond to the general notion. 

§ 24. We have considered objects and classes of 
objects that admit of images as illustrations. These 



40 PSYCHOLOGIC METHOD. 

images, if vague, seem to approximate concepts; if 
vivid, to depart from them. But no image can be 
so vague as to correspond to any concept. Let us take 
more general notions, such as force, matter, quality, 
being. For force, make an image, if one can, of some 
action of gravitation or of heat. If some image or ex- 
perience can be called up, it is felt to be a special 
example that covers only a very small part of the prov- 
ince of force in general. But no image, strictly con- 
sidered, can be made of force at all, or of any special 
example of force. We can image some object that is 
acted upon by force — we can image it before it is 
acted upon and after it is acted upon. That is to say, 
we can image the results of the force, but not the 
force itself. We can think of force, but not image it. 
If we conceive existence, and image some existent 
thing; if we conceive quantity in general and image 
a series of things that can be numbered, or an exten- 
sion or degree that may be measured; if we conceive 
relation in general, and try to illustrate it by imaging 
particular objects between which there is a relation 
— in all these and similar cases we can hardly help 
being conscious of the vast difference between the 
image and the concept. In realizing the concept of 
relation, as in that of force or energy, we do not image 
even an example or specimen of a relation or force, 



A CONCEPT IS NOT A MENTAL PICTURE. 41 

but we image only the conditions or termini of a speci- 
men relation; but the relation itself must be seized 
by thought, if it is cognized at all, just as any force 
must be thought but can not be imaged. We can 
think relations, but not image them. 

Here we notice that we have a lurking* conviction that 
these general ideas or concepts are not so valid and true 
to reality as our imag-es are, or as our immediate percep- 
tions are. Concepts, we are apt to think, are vag-ue and 
faint impressions of sensation. "Ideas are the faint images 
of sense-impressions," said Hume. — Nominalism says that 
there is nothing in reality corresponding to our general 
concepts, and that such concepts are mere devices of ours 
for convenience in knowing and reasoning. If so, our 
images are truer than our concepts. Herbert Spencer says 
(in his First Principles, chapter i) that our concepts are 
mere symbols of objects too great or too multitudinous to 
be mentally represented. — If the views of Hume and Her- 
bert Spencer were true in regard to our general notions, 
psychology would have a very diiferent lesson in it — very 
different from that which we have found. To us the images 
are far less true than our concepts. The images stand 
for fleeting or evanescent forms, while the concepts state 
the eternal and abiding laws, the causal energies that 
constitute the essence of all phenomena. — When we are 
contemplating the world as a congeries of things (recall 
the " lowest stage of thinking " described in Chapter IV) 
we seem to be convinced that all true reality has the 
form of things. But when we begin to reflect on what 
our experience teaches, we see that all things are the 
results of forces, and that they (the things) are in a pro- 
cess of change into other things. The underlying reality, 
then, is force, and even Herbert Spencer assures us that 
the ultimate reality is a persistent force — persistent under 
all the special forces. These forces form and transform 



42 PSYCHOLOGIC METHOD. - 

things. Now force or energ-y is more real than the fleeting 
things in which it manifests itself, and the persistent force 
is more substantial still. — Here we find ourselves arrived 
at another conviction than nominalism. We see that gen- 
eral concepts correspond more nearly to the deeper reali- 
ties (the formative and destructive forces) which mani- 
fest themselves in the process of the world. In fact, 
psychology ought to recognise that the mental act of form- 
ing general concepts is the attempt to go over in the mind 
the real process in which things are explained by our ex- 
perience. We find the history of things — we trace them 
from one shape to another, and we name the process and 
define it. Hence arise our general notions. The oak and the 
acorn are two things to perception. But experience dis- 
covers that there is an individual energy which manifests 
itself as acorn, and then as sapling, and again as oak bear- 
ing a crop of acorns. From acorn to acorn again there is 
a process. Our word oak signifies this general concept, 
which corresponds to the deeper reality of energy which 
reveals itself in the whole process. This leads us from 
the question of mental images to the question of the real- 
ity which we learn to know through experience. We learn 
to estimate at their proper value things and dead results, 
and to look bej^ond them to the energies that cause them 
to be and to change. In the changes we see revealed the 
generic causes and the laws or forms of manifestation. 
We learn in the order of the growth of an oak or of a 
human being what is the energy that is there incarnated 
and what is the law of the inner essential form. 



TIME, SPACE, AND CAUSALITY. 43 



CHAPTEK YL 

Time, Space, and Causality — Three Ideas that malce 
Experience possible. 

§ 25. After the doctrine of tlie three stages of 
thinking expounded in Chapter TV, the next in impor- 
tance is the doctrine of a priori ideas or forms of the 
mind that make experience possible. Kant has proved 
that they are a priori by showing that they are neces- 
sary in order to make experience possible, and hence 
can not ever have been derived from experience. 
They belong to the very structure, so to speak, of our 
ego. Our discussion has made it clear that a conception 
is not a mental picture, but a sort of rule or definition 
for the formation of mental pictures. The mental 
pictures thus formed are only illustrations. The men- 
tal picture called up by the word oah is an illustration, 
but does not exhaust the idea of oak. The idea of 
oak includes an infinite number of possible examples, 
illustrations, or specimens, all differing one from 
another, while the picture that we form in the mind 
is only a particular individual of one species. Inas- 
much as all particular specimens of the oak have 



44 PSYCHOLOGIC METHOD. 

grown to be wliat they are (or what they were) by the 
action of an oak-producing energy, the idea or con- 
scions conception that we form of oak corresponds 
not to the individual, but to the energy which pro- 
duces the individual. Moreover, the energy that 
brings the individual example of an oak into being — 
causing it to sprout and become a sapling, grow to 
maturity and bear its crop of acorns, continually ap- 
propriating from its environment air, moisture, salts, 
and other material that it needs, and converting them 
into vegetable cells — this energy is a more potent 
reality than its effect, the individual oak. It is the 
generic process, in fact, and does not stop with one 
oak, nor a forest of oaks. Our general idea of oaks 
corresponds to this generic energy, and hence has a 
deeper reality corresponding to it than the mere indi- 
vidual oak or oaks that we see by the aid of our senses. 
Sense-perception does not, in fact, amount to much 
until it is aided by the formation of concepts or gen- 
eral ideas. 

§ 26. Previous to the formation of general ideas, 
sense-perception is merely the ceaseless flow of indi- 
vidual impressions without observed connection with 
one another. In fact, we do not perceive at all, 
strictly speaking, until we bring general ideas to the 
aid of our sense-impressions. For we do not perceive 



TIME, SPACE, AND CAUSALITY. 45 

things except by combining our different sense- 
impressions — that is to say, uniting them by means 
of the ideas of Time, Space, and Causality. These 
three ideas are the chief among tlie conditions neces- 
sary fo7' and are not derived from experience — in 
other words, they are not externally perceived as 
objects, or learned by contact with them as individual 
examples. We know that this is so by considering 
their nature, and especially by noting that they are 
necessary as conditions for each and every act of 
experience. We do not mean, of course, that we 
must be conscious of these ideas of time, space, and 
causality before any act of experience; nor would 
we deny that we became conscious of those ideas by 
analyzing experience (separating it . into matter and 
form, time, space, and causality being the form, and 
the particular results the matter). What Ave deny is 
that they were furnished by sense-impressions; what 
we affirm is that they were furnished by the mind in 
its unconscious act of appropriating the sense-impres- 
sions and converting them into perception. The 
mind's self-activity is the source of such ideas. This 
doctrine is, as above noted, the immortal service of 
Kant to philosophy, and it inaugurates the era of 
modern philosophy, furnishing for it an adequate 
psychological basis. We find these ideas in experi- 



46 PSYCHOLOGIC METHOD. 

ence, but as furnislied hj the self -activity of tlie mind 
itself, and not as derived from sense-impressions. We 
may each and all convince ourselves of the impossibil- 
ity of deriving these ideas from sense-impressions by 
giving attention to their peculiar nature. We shall 
see, in fact, that no act of experience can be com- 
pleted without these ideas. Immanuel Kant called 
them " forms of the mind '' — they may be said to be- 
long to the constitution of the mind itself, because it 
uses these ideas in the first act of experience, and in 
all acts of experience. Why could not these ideas be 
furnished by experience, like ideas of trees and ani- 
mals, of earth and sky? The answer is: Because the 
ideas of time and space involve infinitude, and the 
idea of causality involves absoluteness; and neither 
of these ideas could by any possibility be received 
through the senses. For we can see, hear, and feel 
only that which is here and now, and not that which 
is everywhere and always. And it is not correct to 
say that we derive even ideas of trees and animals, 
earth and sky, from sense-impressions, because sense- 
impressions can not become ideas until they are 
brought under the forms of time, space, and causality. 
Before this they are merely sensations ; after this they 
are ideas of possible or real objects existing in the 
world. 



TIME, SPACE, AND CAUSALITY. 47 

Let the psychologist who believes that all ideas are 
derived from sense-impressions explain how^ we could re- 
ceive by such means the idea of what is infinite and abso- 
lute. Is not any sense-perception limited to what is here 
and now? How can we perceive by the senses what is 
omnipresent and eternal? The follower of Hamilton w^ill 
answer, perhaps: " We can not, it is true, perceive what is 
infinite and eternal by means of the senses, nor can we 
conceive or think such ideas by any means whatever. In 
fact, we do not have such ideas. Time and space and 
causality do not, as you assert, imply conceptions of infini- 
tude or absoluteness. All supposed conceptions of the in- 
finite and absolute are merely negative ideas, which ex- 
press our incapacity to conceive the infinite rather than 
our positive comprehension of it." The issue being fairly 
presented, we may test the matter for ourselves. 

§ 27. Do we tliink space to be infinite, or simply 
as indefinite ? Do we not tliink space as having sucli a 
nature that it can only be limited by itself^ In other 
words, would not any limited space, or spaces imply 
space beyond them, and thus be continued rather than 
limited? Let any one try this thought and see if he 
does not find it necessary to think space as infinite, 
for the very reason that all spatial limitation implies 
space beyond the limit. Space as such therefore can 
not be limited; the limitation must belong always to 
that which is within space. An attempt to conceive 
space itself as limited results in thinking the limited 
space as within a larger space. Space is of such a 
nature that it can only be thought as self-continuous, 
for its very limitations continue it. A limited portion 



48 PSYCHOLOGIC METHOD. 

of space is bounded only by another space. The lim- 
ited portion of space is continuous with its environ- 
ment of space. 

§ 28. This is a positive idea and not a negative 
one. It is most important to consider carefully this 
point. The idea would be a negative idea if our think- 
ing of it could not transcend the limit — that is to say, 
if we could not think space beyond the limit. But 
as our thought of space is not thus conditioned (we 
are, in fact, obliged to think a continuous space under 
all spatial limitations) space is a positive or affirmative 
idea. We see that the mind thinks a positive infinite 
space under any idea of a thing extended in space. — 
Let us state this in another way: We perceive or 
think things as having environments — each thing as 
being related to something else or to other things 
surrounding it. This is the thought of relativity. 
But we think both things and environments as con- 
tained in pure space — and pure space is not limited 
or finite, because all limitation implies space beyond. 

The difficulty in this psycholog-ical question arises 
through a confusion of imag-ination with conception or 
thinking". While we conceive infinite space positively, and 
are unable to think space otherwise than as infinite or self- 
continued, yet, on the other hand, we can not imag'e, or 
envisag-e, or form a mental picture of, infinite space. This 
inability to imagine infinite space has been supposed by 
Sir William Hamilton (see his Lectures on Metaphysics, 



TIME, SPACE, AND CAUSALITY. 49 

page 527 of the American edition) to contradict our 
thought of infinite space. His doctrine was adopted by 
Mansell and from him borrowed by Herbert Spencer, who 
made it the foundation thought of his " Unknowable " 
(First Principles, Part I, chapter i). Now, a little reflection 
(and introspection) will convince us that this incapacity 
of imagination to picture infinite space is not a proof that 
we can not conceive or think that idea, but the contrary: 
Our incapacity to image infinite space is another proof of 
thte infinitude of space! 

§ 29. When we form a mental picture of space, 
why do we know that that picture does not represent 
all space? Simply because we are conscious that our 
thought of the mental picture finds boundaries to 
that picture, and that these boundaries imply space 
beyond them; hence the limited picture (and all 
images and pictures must be limited) includes a por- 
tion of space, but not all space. Thus it is our 
thought of space as infinite, or self -continued, that 
makes us conscious of the inadequacy of the mental 
picture. If we could form a mental picture of all 
space, then it would follow of necessity that the whole 
of space is finite. In that case imagination would 
contradict thinking or conceiving. As it is, however, 
imagination confirms conception. Thinking says that 
space is infinite because it is of such a nature that all 
limitations posit space beyond them, and thus only 
continue space instead of bound it. Imagination 
tries to picture space as a limited whole, but finds 



50 PSYCHOLOGIC METHOD. 

it impossible because all its limitations fall within 
space, and do not include space as a bounded 
whole. Thus both mental operations agree. The 
one is a negative confirmation of the other. Think- 
ing reason sees positively that space is infinite, 
while imagination sees that it can not be imagined as 
finite. 

§ 30. Time is also infinite. Any beginning pre- 
supposes a time previous to it. Posit a beginning 
to time itself, and we merely posit a time previous to 
time itself. Time can be limited by time only. The 
now is limited by time past and by time future; no, 
it is not correct to say that it is limited, for it is con- 
tinued by them. Time did not begin ; nor will it end. 
But one can not perceive an event without thinking 
it under the idea of time. I^o sensation that man 
may have had could be construed as a change, or 
event happening in the world, except by the idea of 
time. But it is impossible to derive the idea of time, 
such as we have it, from sense-impressions, for any 
one or any series of such impressions could not fur- 
nish an infinite time nor the idea of a necessary 
condition. Nor could the experience of any limited 
extension give us the idea of infinite space, or of 
the necessity of space as a condition of that ex- 
perience. 



TIME, SPACE, AND CAUSALITY. 51 

If it seems as if this discussion belongs to metaphys- 
ics rather than psychology, this suggestion is made: Psy- 
chology treats of the nature of the mind. It treats of 
the forms which the mind gives to its contents. Hence it 
relates above all to our world-views, in so far as these are 
a priori and reveal the structure of cognition. It relates to 
the theory of knowledge in its most general form, and 
concerns, too, all concrete theories of the world, as well 
as the abstract questions of knowledge. In fact, the atti- 
tude of modern science against philosophy — the attitude 
of positivism against metaphysics — the attitude of mys- 
ticism and " theosophy " against Christianity — in short, 
all agnosticism and pantheism branch out at the point 
treated in this chapter. Most of it starts professedly 
from Sir William Hamilton's supposed proof that the idea 
of the infinite is merely a negative idea — an incapacity 
instead of a real insight. From the psychological doc- 
trine of the negativity of our ideas of the infinite and 
absolute (first applied by Hamilton in his famous critique 
of Cousin) it is easy to establish the world-view of pan- 
theism and to deny the doctrine of the personality of 
God. Surely that part of psychology which treats of the 
capacity of the mind to know ultimate reality is the founda- 
tion of the rest! To him who asserts that psychology is. 
not important for the teacher it may be replied: Upon it 
depends the spirit of his instruction whether he gives a 
pantheistical or a theistical implication to the science and 
literature that he teaches. Psychology, as a mere classifi- 
cation of so-called faculties, or as a mechanical theory of 
sense-perception, conception, imagination, will, and emo- 
tions, is undoubtedly of little worth; but as revealing to 
us the foundations of ultimate principles in our view 
of the world it is of decidedly great importance! It is 
true that the psychology offered to teachers is often only 
a mere classification of the activities of the mind. But 
in order that psychology shall be more than a classifica- 
tion — namely, an investigation of the essential forms of 
mind itself — it is indispensable that its operations shall be 
studied before they are classified. Without such study it 



52 PSYCHOLOGIC METHOD. 

is easy to pass off a spurious theory of ideas — a theory, 
for example, that all ideas are derived from sense-impres- 
sions. On such a theory agnosticism may sit securely and 
deny God, freedom, and immortality. 



CHAPTEE VII. 

Causality and the Absolute. 

§ 31. In the preceding chapter we have discussed 
space and time as ideas that involve the conception 
of infinity. We trust that every one who has care- 
fully considered the exposition has become convinced 
that we actually think space and time as infinite — 
that, in short, we think the infinite positively, or 
affirmatively, and not negatively. In this chapter 
we must discuss another idea that is equally essential 
to experience. Without the idea of Causality there 
could be no experience; experience can not begin 
until the idea of causality awakens in the mind. 
Space and time are not derived from external per- 
ception, but they are perceived by insight, or the 
mind's own self-activity; they are perceived as neces- 
sary conditions for the existence of things and events. 
Space and time are not mere subjective ideas which 
have no objective validity. They are the primary 



CAUSALITY AND THE ABSOLUTE. 53 

logical conditions which make an objective world 
possible. So, too, causality is equally fundamental 
for the existence of experience and the world which 
it reveals. Without using the idea of causality the 
mind can not recognise itself as the producer of its 
deeds, nor can it recognise anything objectively exist- 
ing as the producer of its sense-impressions. All 
sense-impressions are mere feelings and are subjective. 
How do we ever come to recognise objects as the 
causes of our sense-impressions? We can see that it 
is impossible for us to derive the idea of cause from 
experience, because we have to use that idea in order 
to begin experience. The perception of the objective 
is possible only by the act of passing beyond our sub- 
jective sensations and referring them to external ob- 
jects as causes of them. Whether I refer the cause 
of my sensations to objects and thereby perceive, or 
whether I trace the impressions to my own organism 
and detect an illusion of my senses in place of a real 
perception — in both cases I use the idea of causality. 
The object is a cause, or else I am the sole cause. 

" When we are aware of something- that begins to be, 
we are, by the necessity of our intellig-ence, constrained 
to believe that it has a cause," says Sir William Hamilton. 
The idea of causality contains the idea of energy or self- 
activity (or self-determination), and it is not a mere im- 
potence of the mind, but a positive idea that reveals 
to us, more than any other, the transcendence of mind. 



54 PSYCHOLOGIC METHOD. 

But Hamilton (Metaphysics, pag-es 533, 555) refers causality 
to " a neg-ative inij)otence " of the mind: " We can not 
conceive any new existence to commence, therefore all 
that now is seen to arise under a new appearance had 
previously an existence under a prior form," This is 
his explanation of causality: What exists now must have 
existed somehow before; " There is conceived an absolute 
tautology between the effect and its cause. . . . We neces- 
sarily deny in thought that the object which appears to 
beg-in to be really so beg"ins, and we necessarily identify 
its present with its past existence." Here w^e see the de- 
fect of Hamilton's analysis. He eliminates the idea of 
cause or energy, and has left only one of its factors — • 
that of continuity or continuous existence. The element 
of difference or distinction is omitted and ignored. (Hume 
reduced the idea of cause to that of invariable sequence — 
i. e., to invariable variety.) 

§ 32. In our idea of causality we conceive some- 
thing as producing something different from itself, 
or as originating a distinction, a difference. Change 
involves the origination of something new, some- 
thing that did not exist before. This is one of its ele- 
ments. On the other hand, causality involves the 
identification of this new determination with what 
existed before. But this is not all. The difference 
and identity are united in a deeper idea; the idea of 
cause contains the unity of difference and identity 
in a deeper idea — the idea of energy. Energy is 
deeper than existence because it is the originator of 
its form. We think the cause as an energy that gives 
rise to changes. It gives rise to new distinctions 



CAUSALITY AND THE ABSOLUTE. 55 

and differences — something, tliroiigli the action of a 
cause, becomes different from what it was before. 
The action of the energy is the essential element in 
the idea of cause, and Hamilton's analysis omits just 
this, and reduces the idea of an activity to a sequence 
of existence, and thus adopts Hume's analysis. 

Experience would be utterly impossible with such an 
idea as Hamilton's or Hume's in place of the causal idea. 
We should say, as Hamilton does say, in fact, ex niliilo 
nihil — that is to say, there can be no origination, but only 
a persistence, of being-. 

§ 33. The idea of causality involves this: A 
reality which is an energy shall by its activity origi- 
nate a distinction within itself, and by the same activ- 
ity transfer this distinction to something else, thus 
producing a change. A cause sends a stream of influ- 
ence to an effect. It must, therefore, separate this 
stream from itself. Self-separation is therefore the 
fundamental idea in causality. Unless the cause is a 
self-separating energy, it can not be conceived as 
acting on something else. The action of causality 
is based on self -activity. 

The attempt to form a mental image of causality is 
futile. We can imagine existences, but not the origina- 
tion of them. We can not image time and space as we 
conceive them. We can not image causality as we con- 
ceive and think it. — It is, in fact, the most repugnant idea 
to a mind that clings to mental pictures as the only form 
of thinking. Such a mind fails to discriminate clearly 



56 PSYCHOLOGIC METHOD. 

between efficient cause and transmitting links or agerts. 
By doing- this it produces an infinite regress of causes 
which are at the same time effects. In this way it suc- 
ceeds in losing" the idea of efficient cause altog-ether. (This 
is done in the third antinomy of Kant's Critique of Pure 
Reason.) For example: a change, A, is caused by B, an- 
other change; B is caused by C, a third change; C by D, 
and D by E, and so on, ad infinitum. Plere we have a 
change A, which, being an effect, must have a cause. We 
look first for the cause in B, but, upon examination, we 
see that B is only a transmitter of the cause: it is an 
instrument or agent through which the causal energy 
passes on its way from beyond. We successively trace it 
through C, D, E, etc. The imagination says, " so on for- 
ever." This, of course, means that a true originating 
cause is not to be found at all in the series. But if this 
is so, it follows likewise that there are no effects in the 
series unless there is a cause beyond the series, for there 
is no effect without a cause. Here we see that there is a 
fallacy in the idea of infinite progress (or regress) in 
causes. The infinite regress can not be in the cause, but 
only in the effect. For A, B, C, D, E, etc., are all effects. But 
just as sure as we see that these are effects, so sure are we 
that there is an efficient cause to produce them. The in- 
finite series of links or transmitting members of the series 
change or transmit by reason of the activity of a true cause. 
If any one denies this, he denies that the changes are ef- 
fects. To deny that a change is an effect does not escape 
the law of causality, but it asserts that the change is self- 
caused or spontaneous. But this is only to come to the 
same result that one finds if he asserts that the change 
is caused by something else, for it asserts causality. A 
real cause is an originator of changes, or new forms of 
existence. It is not something that demands another 
cause behind it, for it is self-active. The chain of rela- 
tivity ends in a true cause, and can not be conceived with- 
out it. — The true cause is an absolute, inasmuch as it is 
independent. That which receives its form from another 
is dependent and relative. That which is self-active or a 



CAUSALITY AND THE ABSOLUTE. 57 

true cause gives form to itself or to others, and is itself 
independent of others. That which can supply itself 
does not need others to supply it. — Our idea of cause, 
therefore, is the nucleus of our idea of an absolute. It is 
the basis of our idea of freedom, of moral responsibility, 
of selfhood, of immortality, and, finally, of God. 

§ 34. All realities owe their qualities, marks, 
and attributes either to causes outside themselves 
or to their own causality. If the former — that 
is, if they are what they are through others — they 
are dependent beings, and can not be free, or re- 
sponsible, or immortal. If the latter — if they are 
what they are through their own causality — they are 
free and morally responsible, immortal selves, and 
they are in the image of God, the Creator of all 
things, who has endowed them with causal energy — 
that is to say, with the power to build themselves, 
and he has not built them or furnished them ready- 
made. The causal reality may be perfect as God, 
or it may be partially actualized and partially poten- 
tial, as in the case of man. ('' Partially potential '' 
■ — that is to say, man has not fully realized himself, 
although he has the power thus to realize himself.) 

The idea of a whole or complete being- is realized in 
our minds solely through the idea of cause. Any de- 
pendent being is relative to another and involved with it, 
so that it can not be detached from it and exist by itself. 
It is no centre of formation and transformation. Our 
idea of life or living being also has this causal idea as 



58 PSYCHOLOGIC METHOD. 

its basis. When one does not confound the idea of causal- 
ity with the application of it to this or that ease, but sees 
the absolute certainty which he possesses that there can 
be no chang-e without an efficient cause — and the like cer- 
tainty- that the true cause is an originator of movement 
and of new forms — then he sees that exx^erience can not 
furnish the idea because it can not beg-in without it, and 
because the external senses can never perceive a true 
cause at all. 



CHAPTEK YIIL 

The Psychological Meaning of the Infinite and 
Absolute. 

§ 35. We have seen tlie grounds for our conclu- 
sion that time and space are not externally perceived 
as objects or learned by contact with them as indi- 
vidual examples — in short, we have seen that the 
ideas of time and space are not derived from sense- 
perception. From the nature of the case, sense-per- 
ception is limited to what is present (here and now), 
and can not furnish us objects that are infinite, like 
time and space. We have considered the idea of the 
infinite, and noted the fact that it is a positive idea 
and not a negative idea. Time and space are the 
logical conditions of existence of all things and 
events in the w^orld. The ideas of time and space 



MEANING OF THE INFINITE AND ABSOLUTE. 59 

make experience possible. This is very important, 
and must be borne in mind constantly in the psy- 
chology of education, or else we can not rightly ad- 
judge the value or worthlessness of ideas that lie 
at the bottom of so much that is offered us in litera- 
ture, science, history, and philosophy in our day. 

In thinking" these ideas we think the infinite in an 
affirmative manner. Through the mistake of Hamilton 
and Mansel, Herbert Spencer and nearly all of his dis- 
ciples have been led into ag-nosticism, and many of the 
men of science and literature have followed them. If their 
doctrine of the inconceivability of the infinite is based on 
false psychology, we may see at once how much literature 
needs correction. Herbert Spencer, in his First Princi- 
ples, denies the conceivability of all " ultimate religious 
ideas " — such, for example, as self -existence, self-creation, 
and creation by an external ag-ency. Nor can we con- 
ceive (according" to him) of First Cause as infinite and 
absolute. He quotes Mansel: " The absolute can not be 
conceived as conscious, neither can it be conceived as un-, 
conscious; it can not be conceived as complex, neither 
can it be conceived as simple; it can not be conceived by 
difference, neither can it be conceived by the absence of 
difference; it can not be identified with the universe, nei- 
ther can it be distinguished from it." " The fundamental 
conceptions of rational theology," according" to Mansel 
and Spencer, " are thus self-destructive." All these nega- 
tive conclusions are based on the false psychology here 
exposed. Spencer says (page 31, first edition of First Prin- 
ciples) : " Self-existence therefore necessarily means exist- 
ence without a beginning; and to form a conception of 
self-existence is to form a concejjtion of existence without 
a beginning". Now by no mental effort can we do this. 
To conceive existence through infinite past time, implies 
the conception of infinite past time, which is an impossi- 



60 PSYCHOLOGIC METHOD. 

bility." To us this all rests on the confusion of mental 
images with logical thought. We can not image infinite 
time simply because it is infinite. That it is infinite we 
can know, however, by thinking on its nature. We can see 
that any limited time is limited by time previous and sub- 
sequent, and that these three times — present, past, and 
future — all are parts of the same time. In fact, had Spen- 
cer been acquainted with Kant's Critique he would have 
noticed his own contradiction. For while he denies the 
possibility of conceiving self-existence in the first chapters 
of his book, he does not hesitate to set up " persistent 
force " as the highest scientific truth in the latter part 
of his book. His " persistent force," for the reason that it 
" implies the conception of infinite past time, which is an 
impossibility," is a phrase that could have no idea cor- 
responding to it according to his philosophy. Now, if we 
really can know the infinity of space and time and the 
absoluteness implied in causality, it is a matter of great 
concern; for science is coming to be written and taught 
with these agnostic assumptions explicitly stated at every 
turn. There is nothing about natural science that war- 
rants such agnosticism. It is due only to the teachers and 
expounders of it who have adopted a false psychology and 
who give science their own point of view. 

§ 36, The true doctrine of causality leads to valid 
conceptions of self -activity. In Chapter TV of these 
discussions we have described the three stages of 
thought. The second stage sets up relativity as a su- 
preme principle, and is pantheistic. The lowest stage 
of thought is atheistic, because it makes all things 
alike independent realities. The second stage makes 
all things dependent and subordinate to an ultimate 
blind force, which swallows up all special forms of 



MEANING OF THE INFINITE AND ABSOLUTE. 61 

existence. The third stage of thinking reaches the 
ideas of the infinite and the absolute, and compre- 
hends and recognises the attributes of life, moral 
freedom, immortality, and the divine, as belonging 
to whatever has the form of true or independent 
being. All totalities or independent wholes must be 
self-active, for they would be dependent on others, 
and hence not totalities if they were not self-active. — 
The writings of the Scholastics or " Schoolmen " 
abound in expressions for this distinction. A totality 
is called a " perfect being." Descartes uses ^^ per- 
fect " in this sense in his celebrated proof of the being 
of God (in his Third Meditation). 

With a belief that the words " infinite " and " abso- 
lute " do not express anything to which we may think any 
meaning-, all relig-ious, all moral, and all aesthetic ideas must 
be set aside as unthinkable or else explained physiolog"ic- 
ally, or, perhaps, shown up as " survivals " of crude early 
epochs of development, Eelig-ious ideas have been ex- 
plained as a " disease of language." The sun myths that 
have furnished the symbols and metaphors for religious 
ideas are looked upon rather as the substantial meaning, 
and the spiritual ideas which have found expression in 
those symbols are regarded by such agnostics as spurious 
and unwarranted outgrowths. — So freedom and moral re- 
sponsibility, the sheet-anchor of man's higher life in in- 
stitutions, has been denied, and is still denied, by all who 
deny the true import of causality and who set up in its 
place an " invariable sequence." Herbert Spencer, in the 
first American edition of his Data of Psychology (page 
220), says: " Psj^chical changes either conform to law or 
they do not. If they do not conform to law, this work, 



Q2 PSYCHOLOGIC METHOD. 

in common with all works on the subject, is sheer non- 
sense; no science of psychology is possible. If they do 
conform to law, there can not be any such thing- as free 
will." Here " conformity to law " means dependence on 
other being-s belonging- to the series. Mr. Spencer sup- 
poses that freedom is not as rational and fundamental 
as fate. (This will be considered in detail in Chapters 
XVII, XVIII, and XIX.) — The physiological psychologists, 
instead of explaining the nerves and brain as servants of 
mind, are prone to make them the originating source and 
masters of mind. But we are forced to see the soul as a 
substantial self-activity and original cause, which acts on 
its environment really in assimilation and digestion, tak- 
ing up matter and converting it into living tissue — vege- 
table or animal cells; and it reacts ideally against its en- 
vironment in sense-perception, representation, and thought. 
It constructs the ideas of objects, projects them in space 
and time, and thereby perceives those objects — not destroy- 
ing them by the operation, as the process of digestion 
does. 



CHAPTEE IX. 

The Logic of Sense-Perception.^ What Figure of 
the Syllogism Apperception uses. 

§ 37. The exposition of the structure of the mind 
— of its forms used in sense-perception, or reason- 
ing, belongs to psychology. Hence formal logic is 

* I was incited to inquire into the significance or func- 
tion of the three logical figures by a study of the modes 
Baroko and BocardOy undertaken twenty years ago. — 
W. T. H. 



THE LOGIC OF SENSE-PERCEPTION. 63 

a part of psychology, and a very important one. A 
consideration of its significance will throw liglit on 
the structure of sense-perception. Sense-perception is 
not a simple act that can be no further analyzed. In 
its most elementary forms one may readily find the 
entire structure of reason. The difference between 
the higher and lower forms of intelligence consists 
not in the presence or absence of phases of thought, 
but in the degree of completeness of the conscious- 
ness of them — the whole is present, but is not con- 
sciously perceived to be present, in the lower forms. 
The whole structure of reason functions not only in 
every act of mind, no matter how low in the scale — - 
say even in the animal intelligence — nay, more, in 
the life of the plant which has not yet reached the 
plane of intellect — yes, even in the movement of in- 
organic matter: in the laws of celestial gravitation 
there is manifested the structural framework of rea- 
son. " The hand that made us is divine." The ad- 
vance of human intellect, therefore, consists not in 
realizing more of the logical structure of reason, but 
in attaining a more adequate consciousness of its en- 
tire scope. Let us imagine, for illustration, an entire 
circle, and liken the self -activity to it. (Self-deter- 
mination is a movement of return to itself, like the 
circle.) The lowest form of life (the plant) is not con- 



64 PSYCHOLOGIC METHOD. 

scious of the smallest arc of this circle; but the ani- 
mal with the smallest amount of sensation is conscious 
of points or small arcs of it. The lowest human intel- 
ligence knows at least half a circle. The discovery of 
ethical laws, of philosophic principles, of religious 
truths, gradually brings the remaining arc of the 
entire circle under the focus of consciousness. What 
is more wonderful is this: There are degrees of 
higher consciousness. The lower consciousness may 
be a mere feeling or emotion — much smoke and little 
flame of intellect. There are, in fact, degrees of 
emotional consciousness, covering the entire scale: 
First, the small arcs or points; next, the half circle; 
finally, the whole. Think of emotions that concern 
only selfish wants; next, of emotions that are aes- 
thetic, relating to art; next, of emotions that are 
ethical and altruistic; then, of religious emotions 
relating to the vision of the whole and perfect, ^ext 
above the purely emotional (all smoke and no flame 
of abstract intellect), think of the long course of 
human history in which man becomes conscious of his 
nature in more abstract forms, and finally reaches 
science. The progress is from object to subject, and 
finally to the method that unites both. We act, and 
then become conscious of our action, and finally see 
its method. 



THE LOGIC OF SENSE-PERCEPTION. 65 

§ 38. The structure of reason is revealed in logic. 
Logic is thus a portion of psychology — it is '^ rational 
psychology." Let us examine sense-perception and 
see what logical forms make themselves manifest. 
Take the most ordinary act of seeing; what is the 
operation involved there? Is it not the recognition 
of something? We make out the object first as some- 
thing in space before us; then as something limited 
in space; then as something coloured; then as some- 
thing of a definite shape ; and thus on until we recog- 
nise in it a definite object of a kind familiar to us. 
The perception of an object is thus a series of recog- 
nitions — a series of acts of ]3redication or judgment: 
" This is an object before me in space; it is coloured 
gray; it looms through the fog like a tree; no, it is 
pointed like a steeple; I see what looks like a belfry;' 
I make out the cross on the top of the spire; I recog- 
nise it to be a church spire.'' Or, again: " Something 
appears in the distance; it is moving; it moves its 
limbs ; it is not a quadruped ; it is a biped ; it is a boy 
walking this way; he has a basket on his arm; it is 
James." First we recognise a sense-impression, and 
through that impression an object; then the nature 
of the object; its identities with well-known kinds of 
objects; its individual differences from those well- 
known kinds of objects. But the differences are 



QQ PSYCHOLOGIC METHOD. 

recognised as identical with well-known kinds of dif- 
ference. It is the combination of different classes or 
kinds of. attributes that enables us to recognise the 
individuality of this object. It is like all others and 
different from all others. Let us notice what logical 
forms we have used. First, the act of recognition 
uses the second figure of the syllogism. The second 
figure says S is M; P is M; hence S is P; or, in the 
case of sense-perception, (a) this object (the logical 
subject) has a cross on the summit of its spire, or is 
a cross-crowned spire; (b) church spires are cross- 
crowned; (c) hence this object is a church spire. We 
notice that the syllogism is not necessarily true. It 
may be true, but it is not logically certain to be true. 
This uncertainty attaches to sense-perception. Its 
first act is to recognise, and this takes place in the 
second figure of the syllogism, which has '' valid 
modes " (or necessary conclusions) only in the nega- 
tive. But sense-perception uses in-valid modes — 
i. e., syllogisms which do not furnish correct infer- 
ences. Sense-perception, using a valid mode of the 
second figure (the mode called '' Cesare "), might 
have said: 

'No natural tree is cross-croAvned. 

This object is cross-crowned. 

Hence this object can not be a natural tree. 



THE LOGIC OF SENSE-PERCEPTION. 67 

(No P is M; S is M; hence S is not P.) 
The structure of reason, as revealed in logic, 
shows us always universal, particular, and individual 
ideas united in the form of inference or a syllogism. 

Grammar shows us the log-ical structure of lang-uag-e. 
Languag-e is the instrument of, and reveals the structure 
of, reason. Grammar finds that all speech has the form 
of a judgment. A is B — something is something. All 
sense-perception is a recognition of this sort: Something 
(an object before me) is something (an attribute or class 
which I have known before). This is an act of apperception 
or an identification of the new with what is already famil- 
iar. But this recognition or apperception takes place 
through some common mark or property that belongs to 
the object and to the well-known class — this mark or prop- 
erty being the middle term. Hence the judgment is 
grounded on other judgments, and the whole act of sense- 
perception is a syllogism. The mind acts in the form of 
a syllogism, but is dimly conscious or quite unconscious 
of the form in which it acts when it is engaged in sense- 
perception. I perceive that this is a church. steeple. But 
1 do not reflect on the form of mental activity by which 
I have recognised it. If asked, " How do you know that 
it is a church steeple? " then I elevate into consciousness 
some of the steps of the process, and say, " Because I saw 
its cross-crowned summit." This implies the syllogism in 
the second figure: (a) Church spires have cross-crowned 
summits; (b) this object has a cross-crowned summit; (c) 
hence it is a church spire. But this is not a necessary 
conclusion — it is not a " valid mode " of the second figure. 
The mind knows this, but is not conscious of it at the 
time. An objection may be raised which will at once 
draw into consciousness a valid mode. Let it be objected: 
" The object that you see is a monument in the cemetery." 
The reply is, " Monuments do not have belfries, but this 
object has a belfry." Here sense-perception has noted a 



68 PSYCHOLOGIC METHOD. 

further attribute — the belfry. Its conclusion is simply 
neg-ative: " It is not a monument, because it has a belfry," 
and it concludes this in a " valid mode " of the second 
fig-ure (Cesare). (a) No monuments have belfries; (b) this 
object has a belfry; (c) hence it is not a monument. If 
the premises (a and &) are correct, the conclusion neces- 
sarily follows. 

§ 39. In the first act of recognition the second 
figure is used. The characteristic of the second figure 
is this: Its middle term is the predicate in both 
propositions (the major proposition or premise, and 
the minor proposition or premise). There are four 
" modes '^ in this figure which are valid — that is to 
say, four modes in which necessary truth may be 
inferred. The conclusions of these are all negative, 
and run as follows: 

1. This is the "mode'' called "Cesare'': (a) 
:No P is M; (h) ail S is M; (c) hence no S is P. 

2. (" Camestres ") : (a) All P is M; (h) no S is 
M; (c) hence no S is P. 

3. ("Festino"): (a) No P is M; (b) some S is 
M; (c) hence some S is not P. 

4. ("Baroco"): (a) All P is M; (b) some S is 
not M; (c) hence some S is not P.* 

* Let the reader not familiar with log-ic, who desires to 
learn more of it than is explained here, read the first eight 
chapters of Aristotle's Prior Analytics, and he will see 
the subject as presented by its first discoverer. Or any 



THE LOGIC OF SENSE-PERCEPTION". 69 

In the first figure the middle term is subject of the 
major premise and predicate of the minor premise, thus: 
{a) M is P; (6) S is M; (c) hence S is P.* 

In the second figure (as shown above) the middle term 
is the predicate of both premises, thus: (a) P is M; (&) 
S is M; (c) hence S is P. 

In the third figure the middle term is the subject of 
both premises, thus: {a) M is P; (&) M is S; (c) hence 
S is P. 

In the first figure we unite the subject (S) to the predi- 
cate (P) because of a middle term (M) that contains the 
subject, but which is itself contained in the predicate: All 
men are mortal; Socrates is a. man; hence Socrates is 
mortal. Here man is the middle term (M) which contains 
Socrates, the subject (S), and is contained in the more 
general class of mortal beings, the predicate (P). 

In the second figure we unite the subject to the predi- 
cate because of a middle term that includes both — that is 
to say, is predicate of both (because the predicate includes 
its subject). All men are language-using beings; no mon- 
keys are language-using beings; hence no monkeys are 
men. Here monkeys are discriminated from men by the 
middle term, " language-using," which includes all men, 
and excludes all monkeys. 

ordinary compend of logic will give the essential details. 
For this psychological purpose note in particular the 
nature of the three figures which are distinguished by the 
way in which they employ the middle term (the term 
which unites or divides the subject and predicate of the 
conclusion). 

* S is used to denote the word Subject; M to denote 
the word Middle (term) ; P is used to denote the word 
Predicate. S and P are respectively subject and predicate 
of the proposition that expresses the conclusion or infer- 
ence. M is the middle term that bring-s together S and P, 
as it is subject or predicate to the other terms. S, P, and 
M are called " terms," and the first two propositions are 
called, respectively, " major " and " minor " premise. 



70 PSYCHOLOGIC METHOD. 

In the third figure we unite the subject to the predicate 
because of a middle term which is included in both — i. e., 
is subject of both (because the subject is included in the 
predicate). All men are animals; all men are rational; 
hence some animals are rational. Here animals (the sub- 
ject) is united with rational (the predicate) throug-h the 
middle term, man. 



CHAPTER X. 

How Sense-perception uses the First Figure of the 
Syllogism to re-enforce its First Act which takes 
place in the Second Figure. 

§ 40. We have seen that sense-perception uses 
the second figure of the syllogism in its first act. The 
proof of this may be found in the fact that the object 
can not be perceived except in so far as it is recog- 
nised or identified. Identification takes place in the 
second figure of the syllogism. Before one can notice 
the differences of a thing one must identify it as an 
object. And he must identify it as a sensation before 
he can identify the sensation as a sensation of an ob- 
ject. One may not be able to take account of differ- 
ences except in so far as he has a basis of identity 
to go upon. The primary form of seizing the ob- 
ject — the form of ^' presentation," as certain psy- 



SENSE-PERCEPTION. Yl 

chologists call it — is that of the second figure. But 
immediately after its presentation in the second 
figure begins the activity of the first figure. 'No 
sooner have I recognised and classified the object by 
one of its marks than I begin to look after the other 
marks which I have learned in my previous experi- 
ence to belong to objects of its class. I recognise the 
object to be a church steeple by its cross-crowned 
summit, and begin at once to look for other charac- 
teristics of a church steeple, such as a belfry, for ex- 
ample. I also look for the well-known outlines of a 
spire, for the roof of the church to which it is united, 
and so on. If the first step of the process of sense- 
perception is in the form of the second figure, the 
second step is in the form of the first figure. By the 
second figure I have identified the object as a church 
spire. To classify is to refer the new object to what is 
well known. It is possible now to re-enforce the 
present perception by bringing to it all the stored-up 
treasures of experience. I begin at once to draw out 
of the treasure-house of the general class a series of 
inferences: If it is a church spire, it is likely to have 
a belfry — possibly a clock, a steep slope above, shin- 
gled with slate or wood, joined below to the body 
of the church at the ridge of the roof or else at the 
corner of the edifice, etc. Hence I look again and 



^2 PSYCHOLOGIC METHOD. 

again; being now helped by my previous experience 
I collect mncli information in a very short interval 
of time. The form of this second activity in the first 
figure is (a) M is P; (h) S is M; (c) S is P. " This 
object is a church steeple " is the conclusion of the 
second figure or first act of perception. Then by the 
first figure (though not with one of the four valid 
modes) I conclude: (some) church steeples have bel- 
fries; this is a church steeple; hence it has (or may 
have) a belfry. And I continue to look for charac- 
teristics which the first figure infers to be present in 
a steeple. I see a dark opening at the bottom of the 
steeple, and I infer the existence of a belfry by the 
second figure, thus: (a) A belfry has the appearance 
of a dark opening at the base of the steeple; (b) this 
object has that appearance; (c) hence it is a belfry. 
This again is a not-valid mode, and infers only possi- 
bility or probability. 

Thus to and fro moves the syllog-izing- without com- 
ing" to full and clear consciousness. The mind acts with- 
out reflecting- on the form of its acts. The classification of 
the object (belfry) being- effected by the second fig-ure, I go 
on to infer by the first figure what I may expect to find there 
— namely, a bell — and I look for it and see a portion of a 
wheel in the dark opening-. I infer a bell from this. The 
steps are very complex: I recog-nised the wheel by some 
characteristic appearance that belong-s to a wheel. The 
wheel is attached to the axis that turns the bell. Thus 
we have a series of middle terms, each one of which has 



SENSE-PERCEPTION. 73 

been used first as predicate in a syllog-ism of the second 
figure and tlien as middle term in one of tlie first figure. 

§ 41. The modes of the syllogism ordinarily used 
by sense-perception are not the so-called valid modes; 
that is, they deduce only possible or probable knowl- 
edge at best, while the valid modes infer necessary 
conclusions. The cross-crowned object may be some- 
thing else than a steeple ; the dark space below may be 
something else than a belfry; the wheel may be there 
with no bell attached to the axle ; the axle may not be 
there ; the appearance of the wheel may be deceptive. 
Sense-perception abounds in deception. The second 
figure, of identification, is corrected by the use of the 
first figure, of deduction, which offers a number of 
additional marks for verification. , By verification we 
decrease the possibility of error according to the law 
of probabilities. Every additional mark verified in- 
creases the probability. 

The first figure acts in very subtle "v^^ays in the early 
stages of a given observation. I look out through the fog 
in a given direction and see some object so dimly that I 
should not be able to say w^hat it is. But I knov^ M^here 
I am, and that in the direction w^here I am looking there 
is a village. In a village church steeples are wont to be 
seen, and hence I am led to expect that the most promi- 
nent object will be such a steeple. Here the first figure 
acts to suggest what I may expect to see. It acts in a not- 
valid mood, thus: (a) Some villages have churches with 
steeples; (&) this is a village; (c) it has (or may have) a 



^4 PSYCHOLOGIC METHOD. 

steeple. And ag-ain (second iig-ure) : (a) Steeples are 
prominent objects; (h) you behold a prominent object; 
(c) it is (or may be) a steeple. — The identification of the 
present place (the " here ") and the present time (the 
*' now ") leads to a number of anticipations of perception 
by the aid of the first figure. And these lead to verifica- 
tion by means of the second figure. — Besides these very 
general anticipations there are more abstract ones, and 
even a priori anticipations which guide our sense-percep- 
tion. The general idea of space as a major premise sug- 
gests externality and the anticipation that the object is 
limited on all sides; and sense-perception is directed to 
look for boundaries. — Next, the idea of time suggests move- 
ment, and the object is examined for changes. — Then the 
idea of causality suggests functions, and these, too, are 
anticipated, and the object is observed to find its relations 
to other things. These " anticipations of perception " are 
not conscious ordinarily, although they may become so in 
case doubt suggests investigation and verification. 

§ 42. Tlie educational significance of these facts 
of sense-perception is worth noting. The school 
labours to give the pupil the results of human experi- 
ence. This stored-up material furnishes anticipations 
of experience to each, so that he may know what to 
look for when the object is presented to him. In a 
brief time he verifies all that experience has recorded 
of an object. By the first figure of the syllogism the 
individual re-enforces his present vision by all his 
past experience. More than this, he re-enforces it 
by the experience of the race. This makes human 
progress possible, and by accumulation develops civili- 
zation. 



SENSE-PERCEPTION. Y5 

To teach powers of quick perception it is not neces- 
sary simply to use one's senses (although a false psychol- 
ogy often tells us so). It is necessary to store up, in the 
form of scientific generalizations, the observations of the 
race, and then (for this is not all) learn to verify these 
observations and critically test them so as not to mimic 
the former observers and repeat their errors. To master 
the results of the past sharpens one's observation by set- 
ting up in the mind a myriad anticipations of experience 
which test and cross-question observation at every turn, 
and make the alert and critical observer. One learns how 
to eliminate the personal co-efficient from his observations. 
This personal co-efficient is due to the individual peculiar- 
ity of the observer — to his defects and weaknesses. As 
no two persons are likely to have the same defects of sense- 
perception, it is possible for each one to correct the errors 
due to his own personal coefficient by the aid of the ob- 
servation of others. Formal logic has fallen into great 
contempt in modern times. This contempt is not deserved. 
The study of logic as an industry by which we are to learn 
the art of reasoning — this, perhaps, deserves all the con- 
tempt it has received; but as a science of the spiritual 
structure of cognition — a science of the forms of percep- 
tion — it is not contemptible. 



§ 43. Formal logic^ as the exposition of the struc- 
ture of mind — the forms of its functions — is a very 
important part of psychology, and a key to all the un- 
conscious activities of the mind. Treatises on logic 
usually hold the doctrine that logic is the form of 
reflection, and of conscious reflection alone. Hence 
they suppose that sense-perception and feeling are 
not syllogistic in their structure. Hegel was the first 
to show explicitly that every form of life has a syllo- 



76 PSYCHOLOGIC METHOD. 

gistic structure, and that even the inorganic world 
is dominated by the same form. He was led to this 
by seeing that the universal or general term, while it 
means only a class taken superficially, when taken 
profoundly and in its entire compass stands for the 
idea of an energy — a producing cause — just as Plato's 
Ideas are such (see Chapters Y and YI). The uni- 
versal concept {der allgemeine Begrijf) of Hegel cor- 
responds to the creating cause of the species — oak 
means the oak-producing energy. He did not, it is 
true, make the analysis of sense-perception here 
given, but he pointed out the dependence of the 
first figure on the third, and likewise that of the 
second on the first, for the proof of its major prem- 
ise. Hegel alone of students of logic has looked to 
the distinction of figures as having a profound sig- 
nificance. The major premise of each figure needs 
proof; that of the first figure is proved by the third; 
that of the third by the second figure; and finally 
the major premise of the second figure requires 
the first figure for its proof. Hence Hegel changed 
the order that Aristotle gave for the second and 
third figures. In the psychology of sense-percep- 
tion, as expounded here, we change the order of 
the use of the figures to the following: second, first, 
third. 



SENSE-PERCEPTION. Y7 

There are four valid modes in the first figure — four 
modes in which a conclusion may be deduced with abso- 
lute certainty from the premises given — that is to say, if 
the premises are true in these four modes the conclusion 
must be true. These are as follows: 

1. {Barbara): {a) All M are P; (&) all S are M; (c) 
hence all S are P. Illustrating this symbolism: {a) All 
men are mortal (all M are P, or all of the middle term, 
men, are mortal, mortal being the predicate of the con- 
clusion); (6) all Indians are men (all S are M, or all of 
the subject of the conclusion, Indians, are men, the middle 
term) ; (c) hence all Indians are mortal (all S are P, all 
of the subject, Indians, are mortal, the predicate). 

2. {Celarent): (a) No M are P; (&) all S are M; (c) 
hence no S are P. 

3. (Darii): (a) All M are P; (&) some S are M; (c) 
hence some S are P. 

4. (Ferio): (a) No M are P; (&) some S are M; (c) 
hence some S are not P. 

There are sixteen modes (or moods) possible in each 
figure, as one may see by calculating the permutations pos- 
sible in two terms, each one of which has four possible 
forms. Each term, S, M, P, may be universal affirmative-— 
all are (indicated in logic by the letter a); universal nega- 
tive — none are (indicated by the letter e) ; particular af- 
firmative — some are (indicated by the letter i); particular 
negative — some are not (indicated by the letter o). But 
of the sixteen possible modes in each figure only a few^ are 
valid, or draw necessary conclusions. There are only four 
valid modes in the first figure; the same in the second 
figure; and six valid modes in the third figure. 



78 PSYCHOLOGIC METHOD. 



CHAPTEE XI. 

How General Concepts arise. How Sense-Perception 
uses the Third Figure of the Syllogism to store 
up its Experience in General Terms, 

§ 44. The activity of the second figure gives oc- 
casion to that of the first figure. Then the stored-up 
experience leads through the application of the first 
figure to a number of anticipations of perception, 
which are verified or tested. But by what process do 
classes, species, genera, and all the universals which 
furnish the major premise of the first figure arise? 
The answer to this brings us to the consideration of 
the third figure. Its schema is: M is P; M is S; 
hence S is P. Man is a biped ; man is rational ; hence 
(some) rational being is a biped. Here man is the 
middle term, and it is the subject in both premises. 
In the third figure, as used in sense-perception, the 
middle term is the object perceived, and the two 
extremes are connected with each other by the 
fact that they both belong to the same object. Kow, 
since the middle term is subsumed under both ex- 
tremes, it follows that only particular affirmative 
conclusions can be made in it — we can only say 



HOW GENERAL CONCEPTS ARISE. 79 

some S is P and not all S is P. Some rational 
beings are bipeds. This may be seen by considering 
tliat the middle term (which is the object) participates 
in the predicate (major premise: horse is an animal), 
and participates also in the subject (the minor: horse 
is a quadruped). Hence the subject is connected with 
the predicate through the object (horse), which is in 
all cases only a part of the logical sphere of the predi- 
cate, and likewise only a part of the sphere of the sub- 
ject. It follows that this conclusion connects a part 
of the subject with the predicate. 

There are six valid modes in this figure — three par- 
ticular affirmative and three particular negative conclu- 
sions. These are named, respectively: 

Darapti — all M is P; all M is S; hence some S is P. 

Disamis — some M is P; all M is S'; hence some S is P. 

Datisi — all M is P; some M is S; hence some S is P. 

Felapton — no M is P; all M is S; hence some S is not P. 

Bocardo — some M is not P; all M is S; hence some S 
is not P. 

Ferison — no M is P; some M is S; hence some S is 
not P. 

These valid modes, useful as they are in deducing 
necessary conclusions, like the valid modes of the second 
and first figures, are nevertheless not of much use in sense- 
perception. Certainty in experience comes from repetition 
and verification, rather than from single necessary con- 
clusions. 

Explanation of the Artificial Words used to Name the 
Modes. — Aristotle, and after him nearly all other writers 
on logic, hold that the first figure gives the purest and 
simplest form of the syllogism. The other figures are con- 
ceived to rest on it in such a way that the mind in usingf 



80 PSYCHOLOGIC METHOD. 

them unconsciously travels throug-h the first in reaching 
a conclusion. The road travelled is explained by Aristotle 
and his follow^ers. The mnemonic words indicate not only 
the quality (positive or negative) and the quantity (uni- 
versal or particular) of the major, minor, and conclu- 
sion, but also the changes necessary to turn the mode 
into a corresponding one of the first figure. Thus, in Bar- 
bara the three a's show three universal affirmative propo- 
sitions, each expressed by all are; e in Celarent means none 
are; i in Darii, some are; o in Ferio, some are not. In the 
first figure the consonants are not significant, except that 
the first letters, B, C, D, F, are the first four consonants of 
the alphabet, and are taken only as the distinguishing 
characteristics of the modes of that figure. When used in 
the modes of the other figures they indicate that the mode 
beginning with one of these letters is to be explained or 
resolved by transforming it into the mode of the first 
figure to which the letter belongs. Camestres is to be 
changed into Celarent; Festino into Ferio; Baroco into Bar- 
bara, etc. The consonants, s, m, p, used in one of the 
modes of the second and third figures, indicate the changes 
necessary to transform it into a mode of first figure. S 
denotes simple conversion — i. e., the proposition indicated 
by the previous vowel must be converted or changed, so that 
its predicate becomes the subject. Cesare, for example, 
beginning with C, must be changed to Celarent in first 
figure. The s indicates that the universal negative proposi- 
tion, symbolized by the vowel e before it, must be con- 
verted simply, its subject and predicate changing places. 
No man is a bird, converted simply would read no bird is 
a man. Simple conversion can happen in universal nega- 
tives and in particular affirmatives; some birds are waders, 
converted, reads some leaders arc birds. Universal affirma- 
tives convert into particular affirmatives, as, the conversion 
of all men are mortal is not all mortals are men, but some 
mortals are men, because the subject is only a part of the 
extent of the predicate. Conversion of a universal affirma- 
tive into a particular is conversion per accidens, and is in- 
dicated by the letter p after the vowel representing the 



HOW GENERAL CONCEPTS ARISE. 81 

proposition. Thus, in Darapti the p indicates that the 
minor premise, a universal affirmative, represented by the 
second a, should be converted into a particular affirmative. 
Per accidens — by accident — means that the form of neces- 
sity indicated by allness has been lost and the accidental 
assumed. If some are and some are not, accident deter- 
mines which. Finally, m in the mnemonic word indicates 
that the major and minor premises must be exchanged one 
for the other. Thus, in Disamis not only must the major 
premise indicated by the first letter i be converted simply, 
but it must also exchange places with the minor premise 
(metathesis or transposition). The c in Baroco and Bocardo 
indicates that the proposition symbolized by the preceding- 
vowel must be changed into its contradictory (all are into 
some are not; all are not into some are), when an absurd 
result will show itself, and prove that any other than the 
first conclusion is absurd. Baroco and Bocardo are the 
modes not satisfactorily explained by the logicians.* The 
circuitous method of reduction by the ad ft 6sMr(Zwr», although 
Aristotle's method, is perplexing and unsatisfactory. Take 
as examples the following: Baroco — Every animal is en- 
dowed with feeling; some living beings are not endowed 
with feeling; hence some living beings are not animals 
(the plants, for instance). Here it seems perfectly easy 
for the mind to come to a direct conclusion from the 
premises without any process of reductio ad alisurdum; for 
there is a middle term, endowed icith feeling, which contains 
or comprehends all animals, but excludes some living 
beings. It is a simple logical step to conclude that the 
some living heings not in the middle term are not in the 
major term, animals, which is in the middle term. This 

* See Hamilton's Lectures on Logic, pages 312 and 316, 
where he says that they " have been at once the crnces and 
the opprobria of logicians. ... So intricate was Bocardo 
considered that it was looked upon as a trap, into which, 
if you once got, it was no easy matter to find an exit." 
See also, on page 317, his astonishing attempt to analyze 
Bocardo- ■ 



82 PSYCHOLOGIC METHOD. 

is as clear as Ferio: No non-sentient being-s are animals; 
some living beings are non-sentient; hence some living 
beings are not animals. Take Bocardo: Some animals are 
not bipeds; all animals are self-moving; some self-moving 
beings are not bipeds. Here, as in Baroco, the inference is 
direct, because all the middle is in the subject and yet is 
partly outside the predicate; hence the subject is partly 
outside the predicate, and this insight can not be stated 
in a form any clearer than it is in Bocardo. 

§ 45. The third figure follows the second figure, 
and can not precede its activity because each of its 
premises presupposes the action of identifying. The 
object M is S (horses are quadrupeds — S [quadru- 
ped] is recognised in the object). The object M is P 
(horses are shod with hoofs — P [shod] is now recog- 
nised). Thus there are two identifications, one for 
each premise (both using the second figure of the syl- 
logism), before the third figure can begin to function. 
Now it acts and connects the two phases of the ob- 
ject (S P), making a new predication, which may 
serve for a new major premise of the first figure (col- 
lecting in the definition of horse the ideas of quadru- 
ped and hoofs). Hereafter we may say: Such objects 
as those (M) are S P, and when we see one of this 
kind w^e may recognise it in the second figure at once. 
Let us suppose that our object before had been a black 
eagle, a well-known object. Kow we recognise eagle 
and white-head by two acts of the second figure; 



HOW GENERAL CONCEPTS AEISE. 33 

white-headed (bald-headed) eagle makes a new class, 
derived by the third figure. Hereafter, an object may 
be recognised as white-headed (or bald-headed) eagle 
by the second figure, and all its other peculiarities 
stored up in observation deduced by the first figure. 

§ 46. The second figure identifies in sense-per- 
ception; the first figure anticipates further identifica- 
tion; but it is the third figure that distinguishes, di- 
vides, and determines, and by making a new synthesis 
of already familiar marks defines new classes. The 
new class arises by adding a special new attribute 
to an old class. Every new combination of marks dis- 
covered in an object is potentially a new class. All 
other specimens discovered like it are recognised, and 
their peculiarities, stored up by experience, may be 
deduced by the first figure in such a way as to abridge 
the act of perception and make it swift and com- 
pendious. 

§ 47. The third figure notices the striking char- 
acteristics of an object, and unites them through this 
middle term, which is the object itself; these are 
characteristics of one and the same object, and distin- 
guish it from other objects, making it belong to the 
S-P class. Inasmuch as the characteristics S and P 
exist together in the same object, there is some deeper 
unity to be sought for them. This leads to the appli- 



84: PSYCHOLOGIC METHOD. 

cation of the principle of causality. S and P are 
related in some way causally. They are means, or 
ends, or agents, or results, in the same process. The 
a priori principle of causality here acts as an " antici- 
pation of perception," and sets mental activity in the 
third figure to looking for a synthesis of causality 
between the attributes discovered in the same object. 

§ 48. The causal relation has many phases; these 
fall imder two classes — (a) subjective and (h) object- 
ive, (a) As relating to manifestations to sense — • 
colour, noise (especially), taste, touch, smell — the 
object may be obtrusive on our attention; conspicu- 
ous, attractive, monopolizing attention. Here the 
causative energy is subjective in the sense that its 
effect is chiefly upon our senses, and not an essential 
element in the process of the object itself. 

(b) The causal relation, secondly, is that of self- 
activity for the object's own sake. The activity of 
limbs in locomotion — legs, fins, wings; or in prehen- 
sion, as arms, hands, claws, jaws; or in growth, imply- 
ing assimilation, as of trees, etc. — The object is a pro- 
ducer of effects on its environment. 

The activity of the syllog-ism thus far treated is sup- 
posed to be unconscious in various degrees; but the activ- 
ity in the third fig-ure comes nearest to being" a conscious 
one, because it notes what is new and announces the re- 
sults of synthesis in a new definition. 



HOW GENERAL CONCEPTS ARISE. 85 

§ 49. It would seem from this study of tlie third 
figure in sense-perception that the formation of gen- 
eral terms is not conducted after the manner supposed 
in ordinary treatises on psychology. We do not pro- 
ceed by abstraction, comparison, generalization, etc., 
to classification. We make a synthesis of traits, and, 
although we have only one case before us, this syn- 
thesis is a definition of a possible class. If we observe 
a second, like the first, we use this synthetic concept 
(S P) and subsume the object under it. We recognise 
by the second figure any other specimen of the same. 
Thus each synthesis performed by the third figure 
becomes a class definition under which an indefinite 
amount of experience may be stored up by the second 
and first figures. Should no n^w examples occur, 
the synthetic characteristic S P drops into the back- 
ground and remains an individual mark, or it may 
get lost altogether and forgotten. 

§ 50. Here is the natural system of mnemonics: 
The mind classifies, and each class definition is a men- 
tal pigeonhole in which it places facts of experience 
that belong there. The act of noticing the particu- 
lar distinction that forms the subclass assists power- 
fully in retaining the observation in the memory. 
The operation of this third figure may be compared 
not only to a case with pigeonholes, but more aptly to 



86 PSYCHOLOGIC METHOD. 

a series of hands that clutch and hold tightly the 
particular experience. Think how vividly we remem- 
ber an object that possessed a peculiarity — a white 
crow, a tailless squirrel, a sheep with hair, or a horse 
with wool, etc. Whatever is peculiar gets clutched 
by this third figure, and it may become familiar if 
experien<!e furnishes a number of examples to be sub- 
sumed under it; otherwise it remains an exceptional 
fact or a " curiosity." 

§ 51. The lower use of the third figure notes the 
obtrusive characteristics — those which strike the 
senses first — and usually not the characteristics impor- 
tant to the object itself. Its means of self-preserva- 
tion are most important to the object; its means of 
procuring subsistence, and defending itself — what it 
uses as a means of survival in its struggle for exist- 
ence. 

Herein is objective causality manifest, and our gen- 
eral terms get something objective to correspond to them. 
In the case of subjective characteristics which are prolific 
in giving names to the lower varieties, we do not have an 
objective universal named, but only a subjective — a con- 
stant for the form of obtrusion on the sense; for example, 
shade-tail for squirrel (ffKlovpos — ffKid = shadow, and ovpd = 
tail). The striking characteristic of the squirrel is his 
bushy, upturned tail. The animal seated on his haunches 
struck the Greek imagination as an animal sitting in the 
shadow of his tail, or his tail appeared as a materialized 
shadow of him. The name falcon is from its curved beak— 



HOW GENERAL CONCEPTS ARISE. 87 

here the name indicates the objective causal process — its 
instrument of attack. So rodent is a gnawer — another 
example of an objective causal process. The act of gnaw- 
ing- is the means by which this class of animals makes itself 
valid. Cow, and the many words for kine, come from gu, 
to low, to bellow (old Indo-European root; see Fick, Ver- 
gleich. Worterbuch Indo-German. Sprachen, i, 577), just as 
bos, bous, in the Greek and Latin come from the root hu, 
to low, to bellow (see Fick, iv, 178). The most important 
thing about the use of the third figure is this apprehen- 
sion of causality — this formation of concepts based on the 
causal connection between two attributes belonging to the 
object. This is an explaining process — the reaching of a 
universal that is universal because it is a process that 
begets many examples (see Chapter V, on Concepts). It 
is a self-producing power like life. 

§ 52. The action of the third figure, as we have 
seen, produces a definition because it unites two char- 
acteristics in one object. It is the figure of definition 
or determination. The definition may or may not 
be valid for many subsequent specimens. The test 
is tlje further experience which stamps the definition 
with currency or leaves it an exceptional case. 

Says Aristotle: "When one thing without difference 
invariably prevails, there is then first a universal in the 
soul; for the singular is indeed perceived by the sense, 
but sense is of the universal^ — as of man, but not the man 
Callias." It perceives individually, but it is the universal 
or potentially universal that sense perceives in the individ- 
ual. It recognises, or identifies the new percept wdth other 
percepts as one with them " without difference " — this by 
the second figure; then it notes new properties or char- 
acteristics by the third figure, and thereby gets definitions 
of subclasses. Each definition is used by the first figure in 



88 PSYCHOLOGIC METHOD. 

such a manner as to facilitate the observatipn of the marks 
of the object. For further illustration here are a few ex- 
amples of the action of sense-perception in the third figure, 
by which two attributes are united by a causal idea: Tree, 
evergreen, resinous sap (resisting the action of cold). 
Bird, hooked beak, for tearing its prey. Bird, sharp talons, 
clutches living prey. Beast, chews cud, extra stomach. 
Beast, chews cud, divided hoofs (this contrast to the for- 
mer is a mere subjective class, no causality being obvious). 
Beast, large pupil to eye, prowls at night. Desert plant, 
dew-absorbing, no rain. Summary. — The second figure 
classifies, using a property as its middle term. The first 
figure adds to the present observation the results of past 
observation, using the class as a middle term. The third 
figure, using the object as a middle term, perceives a new 
property and adds it to the class, making a new defini- 
tion of a possible subclass, of which the object before it is 
an example. — There are three terms in sense-perception — • 
the object, its class, its properties. The appropriate middle 
term is the object in the third figure, the class in the first 
figure, and a property in the second. — In Chapter V we 
have seen that a conception is not a mental picture, but 
a definition. Here we have found the process by which 
the definition arises. 



§ 53. The ultimate consequences of this princi- 
ple in psychology are important as touching the doc- 
trine of categories of the mind. Sense-perception 
uses these categories unconsciously. Reflection sub- 
sequently discovers their existence, and finally their 
genesis. The fundamental act of mind, as self-de- 
termining, discriminates self from the special modi- 
fication in which the self finds itself. The self is the 
general capacity for feeling, willing, knowing; but it 



HOW GENERAL CONCEPTS ARISE. 89 

is at a given moment determined as one of these, if 
not exclusively, at least predominantly. Every act 
of perception begins with identification (second fig- 
ure). This is an act of removal of the special limita- 
tion from the object — a dissolving of it in the general 
self as a capacity for any and all sensation, volition, 
or thought. Because to see an individual as a class is 
to neglect an infinite number of characteristics, and 
contemplate only the few belonging to the definition 
of this class. It is this first act that gives rise to the 
category of being, and the category of negation born 
with it is next perceived. All other categories arise 
from division of this most general of categories (sum- 
mum genus). The third figure shows how these arise 
by progressive definition. The categories, in so far as 
they do not imply in their definition any properties 
derived from sense-perception, are called categories 
of pure thought or logic. Hegel undertakes to show 
the process of progressive definition by which these 
arise, in his logic (Wissenschaft der Logik). 



90 PSYCHOLOGIC METHOD. 



CHAPTER XII. 

The Body and the Mind, 

§ 54. In the last three chapters we have discussed 
the structure of. the mind as revealed in its logical 
forms. The intellect has a logical constitution; it 
uses the syllogism in all its activity. It is a process 
of determining or of descent from the general to the 
particular, as in the third figure, or it is a process in 
the opposite direction, from the particular to the gen- 
eral, as in the second figure, which identifies particu- 
lars with general terms. In these investigations there 
can be no doubt that we have the real nature of the 
mind revealed to us. It is a self -activity whose forms 
of action are these three logical figures. In the pres- 
ent chapter we are to look at another method of 
studying the mind, that of the so-called physiological 
psychology. This method begins with the living or- 
ganism and studies the correlation of mental phe- 
nomena with bodily changes. It seeks to find what 
phenomena of the soul correspond to various bodily 
stimuli. It is evident at the outset that there is some 
connection between the soul and the body ; all human 



THE BODY AND THE MIND. 91 

experience presupposes this. We use the body in two 
ways: we perceive the external world by means of it, 
and we use the body as an instrument in order to 
produce changes on the world that we see. Here we 
have inward movement and outward movement 
through nerves — centripetal nerve-currents and cen- 
trifugal nerve-currents. Sensation is the sequence of 
the centripetal, and motor-impulse the antecedent of 
the centrifugal. The motor-impulse may proceed 
from the brain, or it may proceed from some gan- 
glion of the spinal marrow. In both these cur- 
rents we have what may be explained as mechanical 
action. It may be so explained, but it is not as yet 
so explained. Mechanical action borrows all its 
energy from another — it merely- transmits it, and 
does not originate it. Vital action is self-activity in 
combination with mechanical action; it originates 
activity and guides it. The process of digestion, com- 
mon to animals and plants, is a vital activity. It takes 
possession of matter in its environment, and acts first 
destructively on its existing form, preparing it for 
food by fire, extinguishing its inherent vitality if it 
has any, and then subjecting it to processes of masti- 
cation and digestion, which deprive it of its other in- 
dependent properties, and converting it into its own 
kind of animal cells. Here it acts constructively, giv- 



92 PSYCHOLOGIC METHOD. 

ing to the matter its own form and converting it into 
cellular tissue. In this process there is a struggle 
between the vital activity and the matter which it 
uses for food. The plant or animal, as vital, originates 
energy. Even if one claims that there is here a con- 
servation of energy, and that the plant or animal de- 
rives or appropriates energy from its food, still it 
must be admitted that the plant or animal guides or 
directs this energy, and thus gives to it its psychical 
form. To guide or direct energy requires energy; it 
requires force to confine a force. Moreover, it is 
necessary that the guiding force be as strong as the 
force it guides. According to one view, the sequence 
of centripetal nerve-action, or the act of sensation, is 
self-active, and also the antecedent of the motor- 
action is a self-activity, while the two nerve-currents 
themselves are mechanical. But according to another 
view, both nerve-currents are vital and not mechan- 
ical. But the self-activity ends somewhere and the 
mechanical begins, it may be in one place or in an- 
other. The action produced by the muscles and the 
bones is certainly mechanical. The origination of 
motion before the nerves receive it is certainly self- 
activity. The spiritual individuality of the soul 
builds its body and uses it in interaction with the 
world, in perception and in volition. 



BRAIN CENTRES OF SENSATION AND MOTION. 93 

Pliysiolog-ical psycholog-y investigates the two kinds of 
action — centripetal and centrifugal — and traces their paths 
and termini. It finds that the sensor current may come 
to the cerebrum before a corresponding motor-current 
originates, or it may only proceed so far as some nervous 
ganglion. In the former case there is conscious volition; 
in the latter case there is only reilex action of some kind. 
Gfeat efforts have been made to discover the several turn- 
ing points, or centres, in which centripetal and centrifugal 
currents are connected. It is certainly one of the most 
worthy objects in natural science to trace out these rela- 
tions of the mechanical, vital, and spiritual. No field of 
Nature has demanded more patience and skill on the part 
of scientific men than the nervous system. We may be 
sure that no field of Nature will yield more valuable re- 
sults. As the science of physiological psychology is in 
its infancy, it is too early to expect much from it yet. I 
shall endeavour to sum up the more significant of its dis- 
coveries in the next two chapters. 



CHAPTEE XIII. 

Brain Centres of Sensation and Motion. 

§ 55. The distinction between sensor and motor 
nerves is made by Rufus Ephesius in bis work on tbe 
names of different parts of tbe body. He lived in tbe 
time of Trajan (97-117 a. d.), but he refers this dis- 
covery to tbe famous pbysician and anatomist Erasis- 
tratus, wbo lived 300 b. c, and discovered tbe cause 
of tbe illness of tbe king's son. Antiocbus, tlie son 



94: PSYCHOLOGIC METHOD. 

of Seleucus Nicator, King of Syria, was pining away, 
and no physician could detect the cause until Era- 
sistratus noticed the quickening of his pulse on the 
approach of the beautiful Stratonice (etc., see the 
classical dictionary). Although this important dis- 
crimination between efferent and afferent nerves is 
two thousand years old, yet the connection between 
these two orders of nerves was only vaguely known 
until recently. Erasistratus, according to Galen, had 
discovered by dissection that the motor nerves arise 
in the substance of the brain, while the sensor nerves 
connect only with the cerebral membranes. Modern 
researches show that both sets of nerves arise in the 
great ganglia at the base of the brain. 

§ 56. The spinal cord, after passing from the 
spine into the skull, thickens and forms the medulla 
oblongata. Above this it expands laterally, sending 
out bundles of nerve-fibres to connect and unite the 
spinal cord with the two hemispheres of the brain, 
thus forming a sort of bridge, called the pons Varo- 
lii. Above this, one on each side of the middle line, 
are the optic thalami, ^' continuous with the gray 
matter of the spinal cord, which thus ascends into 
the interior of the brain." * Above and before the 

* J. Luys, in Appletons' International Scientific Series, 
The Brain and its Functions. 



BRAIN CENTRES OF SENSATION AND MOTION. 95 

optic thalami, and also farther outward from the 
middle line on each side, are two ganglia of gray 
matter, called the corpora striata, or '^ streaked 
bodies." The important concern for us is the func- 
tion of these great ganglia. It is supposed that the 
optic thalami furnish the co-ordinating centre for all 
the nerves of sensation, while the corpora striata fur- 
nish a like centre for all nerves of motion ; co-ordinat- 
ing in the sense that they adjust, harmonize, and 
reduce to unity contrary and conflicting nerve im- 
pulses. The sense-impressions from the surface of 
the body are collected, by aid of the spinal cord, in 
the optic thalami, and thence transmitted to the gray 
matter (cortex) of the large brain (cerebrum). Here 
some elaborative process goes on. When the mind is 
^' made up " to act, there proceeds a motor-impulse to 
the corpora striata, and thence to the muscles of the 
body that are to be moved. 

A French specialist, who has made discoveries in this 
field, describes it: " Through the tissues of the optic thala- 
mi pass vibrations of all kinds, those which radiate from 
the external world, as well as those which emanate from 
vegetative life (i.e., from the digestive organs). There in 
the midst of their cells, in the secret chambers of their 
peculiar activity, these vibrations are diffused, and make 
a preparatory halt; and thence they are darted out in all 
directions, in a new and already more animalized and more 
assimilable form to afford food for the activity of the tis- 
sues of the cortical substance which only live and work 



96 PSYCHOLOGIC METHOD. 

under the impulse of their stimulating- excitement." The 
same author, with his somewhat lively imagination, de- 
scribes the functions of both gang-lia (sensor and motor) 
thus: " The elements of the optic thalami purify and 
transform by their peculiar metabolic action impressions 
radiating" from without, which they launch in an intel- 
lectualized form toward the different regions of the corti- 
cal substance. The elements of the corpus striatum, on 
the contrary, have an inverse influence upon the stimula 
starting from these same regions of the cortical substance. 
They absorb, condense, and materialize them by their 
intervention; and, having amplified and incorporated them 
more and more with the organism, they project them in 
a new form in the direction of the different motor gan- 
glions of the spinal axis, where they thus become one of 
the multiple stimulations destined to bring the muscular 
fibres into play." * 

§ 57. These two ganglia are, moreover, intercon- 
nected by nerve-fibres, and there is possible a direct 
communication between the optic thalami and the 
corpora striata, as well as the indirect communication 
through the gray matter of the cerebrum. Here is a 
physiological basis for the distinction between reflex 
movements and deliberative movements. The spinal 
cord and medulla oblongata are especially the seat 
of a large number of reflex actions, such, for example, 
as the closing of the eye to keep out a cinder, or the 
involuntary gesture of the hand to protect the head 
from a blow aimed at it. The sensory inipulse is con- 

* Luys, pp. 45 and 58. 



BRAIN CENTRES OP SENSATION AND MOTION. 97 

verted into a motor impulse througli a central organ, 
a ganglion of the spinal cord. It is a column or pile 
of centres in which such conversion takes place. Au- 
tomatic actions do not need external stimulus, and 
are not reflex, although they seem to be impelled 
from the same centres as reflex actions; breathing, 
digestion, movement of the heart are automatic. More 
complicated reflex action and automatic centres in the 
medulla oblongata, and still more complex reflexes, 
involve both the optic thalami or corpora quadri- 
gemina (for the sensory side) and the corpora striata 
(for the motor side). The medulla oblongata is 
claimed to be the centre of a large number of auto- 
matic centres, such as breathing, swallowing, sneez- 
ing, coughing, vomiting, laughing^ weeping, etc. If 
there is a direct communication between the optic 
thalami and the corpora striata without the media- 
tion of the cerebrum, we have a reflex action of a 
higher order than those which go out from centres 
in the spinal cord. If, finally, there are two higher 
centres in the gray matter of the cerebrum — a sen- 
sory centre and a volitional centre — the action be- 
comes deliberative, conscious, and responsible. 

It must be understood that the optic thalami form a 
sort of crown to the back portion of the spinal cord, while 
the corpora striata crown in like manner the front por- 
tion. In the cord the sensory regions occupy the back 



98 PSYCHOLOGIC METHOD. 

part, while the motor regions occupy the front. It is 
necessary to add here, however, that the researches of the 
German physiologists seem to prove that there are other 
bodies — e. g., the corpora quadrigemina — that share in the 
functions above attributed (on French authority) solely 
to the optic thalami. These facts point to localization of 
functions in the cerebrum. Some portion of it would seem 
to be used for initiating volitions, and some portion of it 
for elaborating the data of sense-perception. 



CHAPTEE XIV. 
The Localization of Fu7ictio7is in the Brain. 

§ 58. In the previous chapters we have glanced 
at the distinction between sensor and motor nerves, 
and the corresponding distinction between the great 
ganglia at the base of the brain which perform the 
function of co-ordinating centres of these two orders 
of nervous impressions. The optic thalami (together 
with the corpora quadrigemina ?) are supposed to col- 
lect and co-ordinate the sense-impressions and trans- 
mit them to the cerebrum, while the corpora striata 
receive motor-impressions from the cerebrum and 
transmit them to the muscles of the various limbs. 
The localization of functions in the cerebrum has 
naturally occupied much attention. In fact, this is a 



LOCALIZATION OF FUNCTIONS IN THE BRAIN. 99 

very old investigation, although it has not begun to 
yield trustworthy results until quite recently. 

Herophilus of Bithynia (300 b. c.) is reported by Galen 
as the first who held the doctrine that the brain is the 
seat of the mind. Galen himself (130-200 a. d.) adopts this 
view. Indeed, the father of medicine, Hippocrates (460- 
370 B. c), is mentioned as having the same opinion. — The 
influence of Aristotle was against the localization of mental 
functions in the brain. The heart was thought to be fittest 
for such functions. In later times different phases of the 
mind came to be assigned to different parts of the body. 
The spleen was supposed to be the seat of hilarity and good 
spirits (splene rident) ; wisdom dwelt in the heart (corde 
sapiunt); anger in the gall (felle irascuntur) ; love in the 
liver (jecore amant) ; vanity in the lungs (pulmone jactan- 
tur). Albertus Magnus, the great Schoolman (a. d, 1200- 
1280), not only located the mind in the brain, but dis- 
tributed the faculties, assigning judgment and reason to 
the frontal portion, imagination to the middle portion, 
and memory to the posterior regions. His ideas had been 
influenced by the Arabian commentator Averrhoes, who 
supported Galen's views against Aristotle. It was thought, 
that the empty cavities (ventricles) formed between the 
great ganglia at the base of the brain were the seat of 
the vital spirits or forces of the soul. Malpighi and 
Willis (about 1680) first called attention to the gray mat- 
ter of the surface of the cerebrum as the true seat of the 
spiritual forces, but the basal ganglia were favoured by 
many anatomists of the sixteenth and seventeenth cen- 
turies as the location of the soul and its faculties. Pro- 
chaska, of Vienna, published a work in 1784 looking toward 
a system of phrenology. 

§ 59. Gall, in 1798, gave the first impulse to the 
widespread movement under the name of phrenology. 
He was joined by Spurzheim, in 1804, who carried 



100 PSYCHOLOGIC METHOD. 

the system to England and the United States, gain- 
ing many disciples in both countries, while Gall 
made many influential converts in Paris. Gall 
mapped out on the skull the locations of mental 
peculiarities, which he named, from their excessive 
manifestation, organs of murder, theft, cunning, 
pride, vanity, on the other hand, Spurzheim attempted 
to systematize the organs into groups, and to name 
them from their normal manifestation. The feelings 
were located in the middle and back parts of the head, 
and include (1) propensities or blind impulses like 
love and hate, appetite and avarice; (2) sentiments 
like self-esteem and caution, benevolence and con- 
scientiousness, firmness, hope, the sense of the beau- 
tiful and of the ludicrous. In the front of the head 
were located the intellectual faculties, those of per- 
ception being behind the frontal sinus, with the re- 
flective faculties above them. 

§ 60. The observations of Gall are original and 
of some value, but those of Spurzheim and the other 
phrenologists are hampered by theory and can not 
be relied upon. A psychologic theory settles the 
definitions of the separate faculties, and determines 
in advance what is to be found. But the definitions 
are very imperfect, and some of the phrenological 
faculties are only modifications of others, as, for in- 



LOCALIZATION OF FUNCTIONS IN THE BRAIN. 101 

stance, '^ comparison '' includes " causality/' and 
" form " includes " individuality/' according to the 
definitions given. Also, many of the higher intel- 
lectual powers are omitted altogether, because Spurz- 
heim possessed them feebly and had no power to ob- 
serve them. For instance, the power to perceive in 
thought what is complete and independent in itself 
is a different faculty from that which perceives causal 
relations in the external world. Yet it is the most 
important of all intellectual powers. Theologians 
and poets of the highest order, as well as original 
philosophers — St. Paul and Athanasius, Dante and 
Shakespeare, Plato and Kant — possess this '^ faculty." 
'^ Comparison " should relate to the discernment of 
analogies, and be the poetic faculty of discovering 
correspondences between the material and spiritual, 
but this is a different mental activity from the essen- 
tially prosaic faculty of discrimination which notices 
differences rather than analogies. Besides this, the 
faculty of " ideality " (called '' poesie " by Gall) en- 
croaches on the province of this mental activity. 

§ 61. But, aside from this a priori system of 
psychology based on crude introspection, a serious 
objection to phrenology is to be found in the fact that 
the so-called " organs " are protuberances of the skull, 
and do not correspond to natural divisions of the 



102 PSYCHOLOGIC METHOD. 

brain. The '^ organs '' of perception, twelve in all, 
crowded together behind the eyes are formed by the 
protrusion of the outer wall of the skull, while the 
inner table, keeping close to the brain, leaves a 
" sinus,'' or chasm, between it and the outer. More- 
over, the convolutions, which are distinctly marked 
by well-established fissures or furrows (sulci), in no 
case agree with the ^' organs " as mapped out. Some 
organs are located over fissures; some unite portions 
of different convolutions. The organ of amativeness 
belongs to the cerebellum, while that of alimentive- 
ness (another '^ propensity ") belongs to the cerebrum. 
Bony processes on the skull for the insertion of mus- 
cles are (as in the case of " combativeness ") mistaken 
for brain protuberances. No account is made of the 
convolutions in the '' island of Keil," or of those 
which are found in the median longitudinal fissure 
which separates the two hemispheres of the brain. 

§ 62. Phrenology, however, led to the more sys- 
tematic study of the brain. Magendie and Desmou- 
lins attempted a description of the brain in 1825, but 
Kolando, in 1830, was the first to start on the right 
track by a study of the great fissure which separates 
the frontal lobe from the rest of the brain. The fis- 
sure of Sylvius (named from the Leyden anatomist 
Sylvius, 1672) is the largest and most important, and 



LOCALIZATION OF FUNCTIONS IN THE BRAIN. 103 

is formed, as it were, by folding the entire brain in 
the form of an arch, the concave surface closing to- 
gether over the fissure. The spinal marrow folds 
back upon itself and thus forms the cerebrum, leav- 
ing the Sylvian fissure to show the fold. This fissure 
is parallel to a line drawn from the end of the nose 
to the external opening of the ear, and about two 
inches above it, its middle point being over the ear. 
Below this fissure, and parallel to it, extend the three 
convolutions of the temporo-sphenoidal lobe, sepa- 
rated by two minor fissures (the larger one named the 
'^'parallel temporal fissure "). 

§ 63. The second great fissure is likewise named 
from the anatomist who first described it (Rolando, 
of Turin, in 1830). It arises near the middle and a 
half inch above the Sylvian fissure, and extends up- 
ward and backward about four inches to the median 
line separating the two hemispheres. It divides the 
frontal lobe from the parietal. It runs for its entire 
length between two convolutions, the ascending 
frontal and ascending parietal, very important be- 
cause in them have been "made the recent discoveries 
of localized functions. Three parallel convolutions 
(upper, middle, and lower) spring from the ascending 
frontal and extend to the median line of the forehead. 
Behind the ascending parietal convolution, and sepa- 



104 PSYCHOLOGIC METHOD. 

rated from it by a long and deep fissure (tlie intra- 
parietal, third in size and importance), is the supra- 
marginal convolution, and below this the angular con- 
volution, also important because it is the centre for 
the movements of the eyes. There is a fissure (the 
parieto-occipital) that separates the parietal from the 
occipital lobe, which also has three convolutions 
(upper, middle, and lower). 

§ 64. This is an outline map of the convolu- 
tions.* ]^ow look at the results of recent investiga- 
tions. The anatomists who examined the claims of 
phrenologists fifty years ago found only negative re- 
sults. Longet, Magendie, Flourens, Matteucci^ Schiff, 
and others declared that their experiments showed 
no evidence of such localization. Longet tried me- 
chanical irritation, cauterization, and even galvanic 
currents on the brains of dogs, rabbits, and kids, with- 
out obtaining any sign of muscular contraction. But, 
in 1861, Br oca, of Paris, gave a report of two cases 
of aphasia, and announced that loss of speech is caused 
by the disease of the back portion of the lower frontal 
convolution on the left side of the head (a point three 
inches above and forward of the orifice of the ear). 



* The subjoined is a roughly constructed cut of the 
brain, showing- the main features. 



LOCALIZATION OF FUNCTIONS IN THE BRAIN. 105 




S-S, Fissure of Sylvius. 
R-R, Fissure of Rolando. 



FISSURES. 



CONVOLUTIONS. 



1, 1, 1, Inferior frontal (below the inferior frontal fissure). 

2, 2, 2, Middle frontal (between inferior and superior frontal fissures). 

3, 3, Superior frontal (above superior frontal fissure). 

4, 4, 4, Ascending frontal (front of the fissure of Rolando). 

5, 5, 5, Ascending parietal (between the Rolando and intraparietal fissures). 

6, 6, Angular (above the parallel fissure.) 

7, 7, Superior temporo-sphenoidal (between the Sylvian and parallel fissures). 

8, 8, 8, Middle temporo-sphenoidal (below parallel fissure). 

9, 9, Inferior temporo-sphenoidal. 

10, Superior occipital (behind the parieto-occipital fissure). 

11, Middle occipital. 

12, Inferior occipital. 

A, Supra-marginal (under the parietal eminence). 

B, Postero-parietal. 



Eckliard, six years later, discovered that convulsive 
movements in the extremities may be caused by re- 
moving portions of the cortical substance, or gray 
matter of the brain. (The cortical substance, or gray 
matter of the brain, is about one tenth of an inch in 
thickness, and covers the whole brain like a cortex 



106 " PSYCHOLOGIC METHOD. 

or bark.) Meynert before this had arrived at the 
conclusion that the front part of the brain is used 
for functions of movement, while the back part is 
used for sensation. 

§ 65. During the Franco-Prussian War, in 1870, 
Dr. Hitzig applied a galvanic current to a portion of 
the exposed brain of a wounded soldier, and noticed 
that it caused a contraction of the eyelids. After the 
war he and Dr. Fritsch made systematic experiments 
on lower animals with a continuous current, and were 
able to locate five centres of movement in the convolu- 
tions near the fissure of Rolando. Besides the centre 
for the movement of the tongue, already mentioned 
as discovered by Broca, they located the centre for the 
movements of the eyelids and upper part of the face 
just above the former; the centre for the muscles of 
the neck is situated in the back part of the upper 
frontal convolution; the centre for the movement of 
the arms (or fore legs) in the upper end of the ascend- 
ing frontal; the centre for the movement of the hind 
legs just opposite of the former, across the fissure of 
Rolando, in the upper part of the ascending parietal 
convolution; the centre for the movement of the eye- 
balls in the angular convolution, just below and back 
of the marginal protuberances at the side of the head. 
The publication of these discoveries made an epoch 



liOCALIZATION OF FUNCTIONS IN THE BRAIN. 107 

in the study of the brain. Dr. David Ferrier, of Lon- 
don, used a f aradic current instead of the continuous 
current, and succeeded eventually in locating fifteen 
centres of movement in the brain of the monkey. 

These centres, if stimulated, produce the following- 
movements (the numbers and letters referring- to Fer- 
rier's map): (1) Advance the legs, as in walking-; (2) com- 
plex movements of leg-, foot, and trunk; (3) movements of 
tail; (4) movements forward and backward of fore limbs; 
(5) extension of arm and hand to reach something-; a, b, 
c, d — movements of fingers and wrists and clinching- of 
fist; (6) forearm raised to the mouth; (7) ang-le of mouth 
drawn back and elevated; (8) nose and upper lip elevated 
and lower lip depressed so as to expose the canine teeth; 
(9) mouth opened and tongue protruded; (10) mouth 
opened and tongue drawn back; (11) angle of mouth 
drawn back; (12) eyes opened widely, head and eyes 
turned to one side; (13 and 13*) rolling of eyeballs to one 
side; (14) drawing back of ears; (15) twisting of lip and 
nostril on one side. It will be readily seen that these are 
chiefly further specifications of the areas discovered by 
Hitzig and Fritsch: for movements of the hind legs 
(marked on maps of the brain E, in the upper portion of 
the ascending parietal convolution) we have No. 1 of Fer- 
rier located in the same region. — Hitzig's fore-limb move- 
ments (marked D on maps of the brain, located in the 
upper portion of the ascending frontal) correspond to 
Nos. 4, 5, 6, a, b, c, d, of Ferrier, of which 5 and 6 occupy 
an area a little below D, and the others cover the middle 
and lower portions of the ascending parietal. The tail 
movement (No. 3) is between Nos. 4 and 5. Hitzig's neck 
and head movement (marked C, in back part of upper 
frontal) corresponds to No. 12 of Ferrier in locality. His 
face movements (marked B, in back part of middle 
frontal) correspond to Ferrier's Nos. 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11, all 
relating to the mouth in some way. Nos. 6 (which carries 
10 



108 PSYCHOLOaiC METHOD. 

hand to mouth), 7, 8, 9, 10 occupy the middle and lower 
portions of the ascending" frontal, and are separated by a 
fissure from B. No. 11 is in the lowest part of the ascend- 
ing* parietal, Hitzig's centre for movement of the eyeball 
(marked F, in the supramarg-inal and ang-ular convolu- 
tions) corresjjonds to Ferrier's 13 and 13*, which extend 
from the locality of F down some distance on both sides 
of the parallel temporo-sphenoidal fissure. Ferrier's No. 11 
covers the whole of the upper temjioro-sphenoidal convolu- 
tion, and corresponds to G, the old location of the centre 
for movements of the ear, which was placed only in the 
forward end of that convolution. His No. 15 is in the 
convolution at the base of the brain (subiculum cornu 
ammonis). 

§ 66. The results of Ferrier's experiments in tlie 
main confirm and carry out those of Hitzig and 
Fritsch. More recently Horsley and Schafer have 
discovered areas associated with movements of the 
thorax, abdomen, and pelvis. The experiments of 
Munk, who removed portions of the brain of animals 
and noted carefully the disturbances of motion that 
occurred, confirm in general the location of the motor 
area. It was his opinion that there is a sensor area 
back of the motor region. It will be noted that these 
views and results contradict the phrenological hy- 
pothesis which placed the organs of sense-perception 
in the extreme frontal portion of the brain, while 
the motor organs (propensities) are in the occipital 
and temporo-sphenoidal portions. Munk's theory of 
the action of these areas is more interesting than the 



LOCALIZATION OF FUNCTIONS IN THE BRAIN. 109 

details of location. He rejects the view that makes 
these to be direct motor centres, and supposes that 
they are really centres of mental images of those 
parts of the body which are moved. Lose the mental 
image of the hand, and one can not will it to move. 
§ 67. Goltz, of Strasburg, who also made experi- 
ments in extirpation of brain tracts by a method in- 
vented by himself, using a jet of water to avoid hgem- 
orrhage, thinks that it is possible to explain all these 
facts of location by inhibitory action on lower cen- 
tres, and that there are no experiments that show 
beyond question the existence of detached centres 
of movement. But he agrees with Munk that the 
cerebrum has to do with sensory activities. Destruc- 
tion of the cortical substance, says the latter, produces 
physical blindness, inability to form an intelligent 
comprehension of the visual impressions received. 
The gray matter over the occipital lobes would have 
to do with the elaboration of simple visual impres- 
sions into clear perceptions. Destroy it, and the ani- 
mal still sees, but can not convert his seeing into act- 
ing, because he can not connect it with his previous 
experience; not unite it into a consistent perception; 
not interpret it by his wants and desires. The cortex 
(gray matter) of the brain would have to do with 
attention. 



110 PSYCHOLOGIC METHOD. 

Dr. Ferrier has adopted a somewhat similar view: 
" After the animals, which were selected on account of 
their intelligent character, were operated upon and a part 
of the brain removed, they remained apathetic or dull, 
or dozed off to sleep, responding only to sensations or im- 
pressions of the moment, or varying their listlessnfc>;s 
with restless and purposeless wanderings to and fro. In- 
stead of, as before, being actively interested in their sur- 
roundings, and curiously prying into all that came within 
the field of their observation, they had lost, to all appear- 
ance, the faculty of attentive and intelligent observation." 
The movements in the eyes, occasioned by stimulating the 
angular convolution, he regards as " merely reflex move- 
ments on the excitation of subjective visual sensation." 
It was not motor paralysis, but the loss of intellectual 
images. (To use the logical explanation for it, it was 
the inability to employ the second figure of the syllogism 
and recognise the impressions made on their senses. Not 
recognising the object, they could not re-enforce their per- 
ception by the first figure, the deductive syllogism, and 
hence could not find motives for action.) Ferrier thinks 
that the auditory centre is in the upper temporo-sphenoidal 
convolution, and that this explains the movement of the 
animal's ears under the electrical excitement of that con- 
volution. Taste and smell he referred to the lower tem- 
poro-sphenoidal convolution, and touch to a convolution 
called the hippocampus major at the base of the brain. 

§ 68. Another line of investigation has been un- 
dertaken with great industry by Prof. Exner. He 
read all the cases of cerebral disease that had been 
followed by post-mortem examination — several thou- 
sand in all. Comparatively few of these were suffi- 
ciently circumstantial and trustworthy to be received 
as evidence; only one hundred and sixty-nine cases, 



LOCALIZATION OF FUNCTIONS IN THE BRAIN, m 

in fact, were available as test cases. He constructed 
charts showing what areas of the brain showed lesion 
in the case of each mental disturbance recorded. His 
careful induction has confirmed the other methods 
of localization. He found that lesions of the brain in 
which some disturbance of function followed were 
mostly located in that part of the brain lying near 
the fissure of Rolando, and that lesions in the left 
hemisphere of the brain are most likely to be followed 
by disturbance of function. From his data it has been 
inferred that the left side of the brain has to do with 
motion, while the right side has more to do with 
sensibility. But this is a mere conjecture. Although 
this field of investigation has been opened within 
twenty years, there are now many scientific men at 
work in it, and there is constant and rapid addition 
made to the stock of knowledge. The mutual crit- 
icisms, the different working hypotheses, and, above 
all, the different methods of investigation invented, 
help to sift out erroneous conjectures and confirm 
the sound theories. Munk and Ferrier, Goltz and 
Luciana, Exner and Lepine, Luys, Pitres, Tam- 
burini, and their co-workers have assisted one 
another by sharp criticism as much as by newly 
discovered data. It is important to arrive at a 
theory which will unite and harmonize the observa- 



112 PSYCHOLOGIC METHOD. 

tions and suggest new experiments for verifica- 
tion. 

§ 69. In concluding this meagre summary of 
that part of physiological psychology which relates 
to the localization of mental functions in the brain 
a word must be added as to its results.* "When inter- 
preted by introspective psychology and compared 
with its results, we do not discover any new grounds 
for distrusting the spiritual theory of the soul, nor 
do we see in these researches much that throws any 
light on the real nature of the mind itself. Self- 
activity, which is the object of introspection, is neces- 
sarily presupposed to explain life in plants and ani- 
mals — not to speak of man. The plant acts on its 
surroundings, and, laying hold of foreign matter, 
strips off from it its form, and then assimilates it or 
stamps upon it its own peculiar form of vegetative 
cell. Graft the cells of one plant upon another 



* The reader who wishes the most serviceable book on 
this subject in the English language should get Prof. 
George T, Ladd's Elements of Physiological Psychology 
(New York: Charles Scribner's Sons). The articles in the 
Encyclopedia Britannica may be consulted to advantage; 
see the titles "Anatomy," " Physiology," "Aphasia," " Psy- 
chology." But no one else has ever w^ritten so entertain- 
ingly on the subject as Prof. William James in The Prin- 
ciples of Psychology, two volumes (New. York: Henry 
Holt & Co., 1890). 



LOCALIZATION OF FUNCTIONS IN THE BRAIN. 113 

plant, and they retain their own individuality and 
produce their own kind. , In the act of digestion the 
animal organism manifests the self-activity of the 
individual just as the plant does. Life is the mani- 
festation of originating energy in an individual form. 

§ 70. Self -activity is plainly manifest in the pro- 
cess of digestion common to plants and animals. But 
feeling, which is a higher manifestation of self -activ- 
ity, does not seem to be higher, for the reason that 
we are prone to look upon it as a passivity affected 
by external influences. Feeling is higher, however, 
than assimilation, because in it the soul makes or re- 
peats for itself the form of the environment. In di- 
gestion the soul gives its form to matter; in sensation 
it gives form to itself without matter. We do not do 
any violence to external objects in perceiving them or 
hearing them; we form representations of them for 
ourselves. In the rational intellect the soul contem- 
plates universals, forming them by self-definition. It 
sees causal energies as the essence of phenomena, and 
to these causal energies correspond the general terms 
of language. As will, the soul shows its individuality 
and independence in the most direct way. 

§ Yl. The matter of the brain and nerves is con- 
stantly changing. The living individual energy of 
the soul a^^jregates matter and organizes it into an 



114 PSYCHOLOGIC METHOD. 

instrument adapted for its purposes: First, it learns 
tlie world through the sensory nerves; secondly, it 
acts on the world through its motor nerves and real- 
izes its ideals by its will. It is incorrect to call a living 
organism a ^' mechanism/' for a mechanism is wholly 
a means, and not an end; it is moved by causation 
from without, while in an organism its parts are alike 
means and ends to the whole. But while the body is 
organic, the soul is not organic, but a higher form of 
being — namely, a pure self-activity which makes its 
product (that is to say, its organism) for the sake of 
self-relevation. 



CHAPTER XV. 

The Will 

§ 72. In our last three chapters we have at- 
tempted to give an outline of what has been discov- 
ered up to date in what is called physiological psy- 
chology as far as it relates to the general theory of 
the two sorts of nerves, the two ganglionic centres at 
the base of the brain, and the localization of functions 
in the cerebrum. We have omitted any notice of the 
fields of labour now diligently worked in the psycho- 



THE WILL. 115 

physiological laboratories of America and Europe — 
namely, the ascertainment by exact quantitative ex- 
periments of the velocity and intensity of nerve-cur- 
rents to the brain from various organs, or outwardly 
from the former to the latter. All quantitative meas- 
urement is useful in the process of inventorying 
Nature, and there is no doubt that the devotees of 
" psycho-physics '' will discover much that is valu- 
able on their road. De Soto and others went in search 
of the '' Fountain of Youth,'' and discovered vast 
rivers and the details of the continent, though the 
object of their expeditions was a figment of the im- 
agination. " Saul, the son of Kish, went out to find 
his father's asses, but found a kingdom." Many peo- 
ple have done the reverse of this, and men of average 
capacity are usually well satisfied if in their search 
for kingdoms they are rewarded by finding useful 
beasts of burden. In the laboratories of the students 
of psychology no metaphysical results, nor results in 
pure psychology of a positive character, will be arrived 
at, it is safe enough to say. But it is equally safe to 
expect very useful discoveries relating to the proper 
care and nurture of our nervous system — in short, 
a stock of pathological and educational knowledge, 
and scientific insight into the relation of man to 
other animals, and to his own historic evolution. 



116 PSYCHOLOGIC METHOD. 

§ 73. We take up now the topic of the wilL In 
onr three chapters on the logical structure of sense- 
perception we have called attention to the inner or 
spiritual structure of mind as contradistinguished 
from the physiological structure of its instruments 
of manifestation, which is the subject investigated by 
the laboratory students whose chief discoveries have 
been noticed in the three chapters preceding this. 
The will, inasmuch as it is the most direct and im- 
mediate form of self-activity, lies within the field 
of observation open to introspection. It is a fact 
of consciousness. [N^evertheless, its existence is de- 
nied freely on metaphysical grounds urged against 
self-activity by minds that have reached the second 
stage of thought. If there is no such thing as self- 
activity or self-determination, there is certainly no 
such thing as will-power. We have already discussed 
the so-called inconceivability of self-activity in Chap- 
ters III and Y, and will ask the reader who denies 
spontaneity or freedom or will-power, on account of 
the dogma of inconceivability, to go over once more, 
and yet again, the arguments already submitted to 
remove his objection. 

The centre of pure psychology is this principle of self- 
activity which we have so many times considered. It has 
been found to be the presupposition of all causal action; 



THE WILL. 117 

of all influence of one body upon another; of all depend- 
ence, all change, and all motion. Finally, in the will as 
we are aware of it in our actions, it is not a presup- 
position inferred as the logical condition of the existence 
of some perceived thing or event, but the direct and im- 
mediate object of our inner consciousness, although we 
do not picture this object. We see ourselves as self-active 
in volition — originating motion in our bodies, acting on 
the external world, and setting things in motion to real- 
ize thoughts or ideals which we conceive in our minds. 
We are conscious of ourselves, therefore, as feeling, think- 
ing, and willing, and, strange to say, we have many grades 
of consciousness of these activities. The child or the sav- 
age has some dim consciousness of these activities; the 
cultured man has a reflective consciousness of them, and 
grasps them much more firmly and clearly. The scien- 
tific state of mind has a still more thorough grasp of them 
by means of a third degree of consciousness, a new reflec- 
tion, so to speak, upon them. For the philosopher or sci- 
entific student of psychology not only has these activities 
and the dim consciousness of them, and, secondly, the 
reflective consciousness of them, which the cultured man 
adds to the first or dim inward perception, but he also has 
a higher order of reflection on them which seizes them as 
special objects of observation, jieglects the particular sub- 
ject-matter with which they deal, and confines itself to 
their form. — To illustrate: I touch the surface of this 
paper and feel its texture with my hand, just as a child 
or savage might do, and am conscious of the sensuous im- 
pression it makes, and at the same time I am dimly con- 
scious of myself as subject of the feeling — I know that it 
is my hand that feels, and my self that perceives the sense- 
impression. The child or savage makes this reference to 
himself spontaneously as I now do to myself; but he does 
not refiect on this reference as I am doing, for his mind 
is directed to the object and not to the act of perception — 
his perception is a so-called " objective " perception, and 
the inward perception of consciousness is not by itself 
the object of s^Decial attention, but occurs without any- 



118 PSYCHOLOGIC METHOD. 

thing" more than momentary notice. The cultured man 
differs from the child or savage in paying more attention 
to the subjective phases of perception. He reflects on the 
relation of the object to his sense-organs and is aware 
of a series of doubts as to the accuracy of his perceptions, 
and therefore is apt to make experiments to eliminate 
the deceptive phases that arise through the defects of his 
sense-organs. Finally, the philosophic or scientific con- 
sciousness notes the form of perceiving as its chief object, 
and neglects the object perceived, upon which the child 
had concentrated his attention. The philosophic conscious- 
ness discovers that the mind is active even in the lowest 
sense-impression, and that feeling is itself an ideal recon- 
struction of the environment (as pointed out in Chapter 
III). It is conscious that it feels and knows much of the 
subjective defects of its perception, and also it knows its 
selfhood as an independent and original cause, a respon- 
sible will-power in the universe. 



§ 74. Self -activity is freedom. The so-called 
" freedom of the will '' belongs to the highest degree 
of self-activity. But freedom of the will seems im- 
possible to all persons wht) have reached the first de- 
gree of reflection, which is the second stage of thought 
mentioned in Chapter TV. It is the stage of think- 
ing that makes the doctrine of the relativity of all 
things its supreme principle — it is Herbert Spencer's 
first principle. Those who hold this set up what was 
called by the ancients the category of quality — " all 
things have environments and are what they are be- 
cause necessitated through their environments to be 
such as they are.'' Ordinary " common sense " is in 



THE WILL. 119 

this habit of contemplating all beings as having en- 
vironments — it supposes, in short, that the form of 
external perception is truly universal and valid for 
every being that exists. It denies, therefore, the ex- 
istence of self-activity as mind or will. It pays no 
attention to the form of internal perception or con- 
sciousness which considers solely what is self -active, 
as feeling, thinking, or willing. 

There are two difficulties which students encounter 
in this part of psychology. The first one is to g-et over 
from this external mode of thinking* which reaches the 
category of necessity as the supreme thought beyond 
which there is no further progress — to get over from this 
thought to the insight into freedom as the logical pre- 
supposition of necessity itself. The second difficulty is 
that form of fatalism which urges the impossibility of 
resisting the strongest motive. " The strongest motive de- 
termines the will, and hence there can be no free will," is 
their statement of the case. 



120 PSYCHOLOGIC METHOD. 



CHAPTER XYI. 

The Fallacy of the Doctriiie that the Strongest Motive 
governs the Will, and therefore the Will is not 
Free. 

§ 75. 1 SHALL discuss in this chapter the question of 
motives. The will is not free, because the strongest 
motive always constrains it — this is the conclusion that 
many thinkers have drawn. Is it true, and, if not, 
why does it happen to seem true ? These are the ques- 
tions that a true psychology must solve. First let us 
notice that the argument quietly assumes that motives 
are beings independent of the will, a sort of control- 
ling environment, in fact. The argument practically 
assumes that all reality takes the form of external 
perception, the form of " thing and environment, '^ 
and not the form of internal perception, which is that 
of self -activity. Hence it fails to notice how utterly 
inept its conclusion is. It assumes that motives are 
things really existing which have an actual power 
to condition the energy of the w^ill. Look now for a 
moment at the true psychological facts involved. 

1. A motive is not a reality, not an existing thing, 
not a force or energy. It is an ideal, a mere possibil- 



THE STROXaEST MOTIVE. 121 

ity, a mere thought, or a mere feeling. When it is 
realized it will become a fact, and will lose its char- 
acter of motive. It is a purpose or design, an ideal of 
something different and more desirable than what 
exists. For a motive involves the change of what is 
into something else that is not as yet. It involves the 
realization of a possibility. 

2. Let me see a fine ripe fruit and desire to eat it. 
The motive presents itself to me to do something 
that is not done, and to change the condition of some- 
thing from what it is to a condition that is merely 
possible. I think of the apple as already in the pro- 
cess of being devoured. I think of its juices on my 
tongue and of its flavour. But the juices are not on 
my tongue nor am I tasting its flavour. The motive 
contains the idea of what is not existent. 

3. I must, by my mental activity, go out beyond 
the circle of existence before me in order to conceive 
a motive, or indeed to feel a motive. I must imagine 
something as happening to the reality, that has not 
happened, in order to have a motive. The mind, in 
fact, has to make an abstraction as the first condition 
for the existence of a motive. The motive is not a 
real independent thing, but an idea existing in some 
intelligence as a product of the activity of that intelli- 
gence which has put an ideal in the place of the real. 



122 PSYCHOLOGIC METHOD. 

4. To say that a motive constrains the will is 
therefore to say that something acts before it exists; 
for the motive has only ideal and not actual existence 
until it is realized. 

5. The motive becomes a real thing or fact through 
the act of the will. This realizing of the motive is at 
the same time an annulment of the motive as motive. 
After I have eaten the apple there is no motive any 
longer to eat it. 

§ 76. 6. Thus the will is creative or self -determin- 
ing in two ways or forms in this process of volition. 
The will first creates the motive by thinking away the 
form of something that really exists and thinking an 
ideal or possible form in its place. The being of the 
motive is caused by the will, and the motive is wholly 
dependent on the self-activity of the mind for its ex- 
istence. Secondly, if the motive gets realized, it is 
the will that realizes it. Thus the will is creator of 
the motive as ideal, and of its realization, and to say 
that the motive constrains the will is to say that a pos- 
sible something constrains the actual that creates it, 
or, in other words, that something acts before it 
exists. 

Y. The motive, in fact, is a condition and means 
of freedom or spontaneity (self -activity) ; for there 
can be no free act, nor any sort of act, where there is 



THE STRONGEST MOTIVE. 123 

no possibility of change or of an ideal different from 
the real. The possibility which may be substituted 
for the reality breaks the tyrannical necessity of ex- 
isting environment. 

§ 77. 8. I have supposed a motive of appetite — 
a motive to eat a fruit. Even this sort of motive 
makes for freedom. But there are much higher mo- 
tives. Let us suppose that when I am about to eat 
the apple I think of the idea of property — " Whose 
apple is this? '' I recall the fact that this apple be- 
longs to my neighbour. I at once think that to eat 
his apple violates my neighbour's right to his own. 
A moral motive now comes in and I annul the motive 
to eat the apple, and repress my appetite. What 
seemed desirable no longer seems desirable. Instead 
of this trivial matter of the apple, let it be something 
more than the good things of life; let it be life itself, 
and weigh this against moral integrity. The moral 
motive outweighs all motives of earthly reward. The 
patriot chooses the post that is sure to bring death 
for the sake of his country. The suicide proves his 
transcendental freedom by cutting even the thread 
of life with his own hand. 

9. In the case of moral motive the will sets up 

its own ideal self as motive. In the case of appetite 

it sets up an ideal condition of some. thing or fact as a 
11 



124 PSYCHOLOGIC METHOD. 

motive. In the moral ideal the mind conceives the 
true form of its own highest being — the form of so- 
cial co-operation with a universe of intelligent beings. 

10. The will can so act in its freedom as to con- 
tradict itself. For example, it may act so as to create 
a fate outside itself. It can act so as to prevent the 
realization of possibilities in the external world favour- 
able to the development of mind in knowledge of 
truth and right. It can thus work against the free- 
dom of others — not against their spontaneity, but 
against their realization of highest motives. 

§ 78. 11. Here we come to a great distinction — 
that between spontaneity, or formal freedom, and 
moral freedom or true freedom. The worm has spon- 
taneity, but only a minimum of moral freedom. The 
will is essentially a social being. It may create and 
realize motives of a purely individualistic order — mo- 
tives that when realized result in appropriating for 
one's selfish interest things and facts which it at the 
same time prevents from being useful to others. Sec- 
ondly, it may create and realize motives of an altru- 
istic order. It may change things and events so that 
they benefit others. In other words, a will may co- 
operate with other wills or it may come into antago- 
nism with other wills. The ideal of action that re- 
enforces all wills and does not thwart any is the ideal 



THE STRONGEST MOTIVE. 125 

called morality: " So act that tliy deed will not con- 
tradict itself if it is made the universal act of all 
intelligent beings.'' 

12. If one person steals the property of another, 
he acts immorally, because, if all persons steal, no one 
is left in the safe possession of what he steals — all 
property is annulled. But property is a means of ra- 
tional freedom. It is a means of conquest over time 
and space; a means by which all wills may re-enforce 
each will; a means of elevating the individual into 
the species. Add to each will the aggregate will of 
all intelligent beings in the universe and you make 
each will infinite. 

13. There is, therefore, a spontaneous or formal 
will and a moral or rational will. Both are free so far 
as the ordinary sense of the word " free " is concerned, 
because both are self-active and both create and use 
motives. But in a higher sense only the moral will 
is free, because it alone progressively conquers its 
environment. It effects this conquest in two ways: 
First, as regards the environment of things and events, 
the world of material and non-spiritual existence, it 
makes combinations which result in the production 
of food, clothing, shelter, and means of intercommuni- 
cation. Secondly, as regards the human environment, 
it makes social combination by adopting ethical forms 



126 PSYCHOLOGIC METHOD. 

— forms in which all may act without contradiction 
and with mutual help and co-operation. 

§ 79. 14. The moral motive is now seen to be 
the highest motive, because it is the form that con- 
solidates all intelligent will-power into one power, so 
that the action of each assists the action of all. This 
one power is the will of the social whole. Hence 
it is properly called by Hegel the fo"rm of 'pure will, 
because it places as supreme motive the harmony 
of all wills — the mutual re-enforcement of all wills. 
Outside of the moral form of action each will con- 
tradicts others and also itself; for its acts of one day 
contradict those of a previous day and reduce them 
to zero. The immoral man is perpetually annulling 
his own action ; the moral man continually re-enforces 
the days by the years and the moments by eternity. 

Thus our psychology of the will has brought us into 
the presence of the psychology of morals. 

Let us consider in the next chapter the psychology 
that underlies the metaphysical thought of Necessity or 
Fate, an idea or thought which causes so much confusion 
in the moral world that it has long been regarded as one 
of the most important objects of higher education to bring 
the pupil out of its enthralment. It has also had baneful 
effects in religion. 



FREEDOM VERSUS PATE. 127 

CHAPTER XYII. 

Freedom versus Fate. 

§ 80. I HAVE already pointed out that psychology 
furnishes a solution of the problem of free will. It 
shows how the category of quality (or " thing and 
environment ") seems to exhaust the entire range of 
possibilities and to shut out that of freedom com- 
pletely. But the category of self -activity is as much 
a fact of internal observation as quality is a fact of 
external observation, and, as we shall see, even things 
and their environments presuppose self -activity in the 
beings on which they depend. Our thinking, feeling, 
and willing are forms of self-activity, and inconceiv- 
able without admitting it. Moreover, self-activity 
must be assumed in order to explain any form of liv- 
ing being. We have discussed this in Chapter III, 
in the case of the plant and the animal. 

§ 81. We now come to the very important ques- 
tion how to reconcile these two categories — self -activ- 
ity and quality ; for quality is the category of fate, 
while self-activity is the category of freedom. In 
other words, we are here to study the fundamental 
nature of these two forms of thinking and see which 



128 PSYCHOLOGIC METHOD. 

is the most substantial. Does freedom presuppose 
fate as its ground, or, on the other hand, does fate 
presuppose freedom? If they are co-ordinate and 
equally valid, there is a contradiction in the very na- 
ture of our thought. Kant and Fichte apparently 
come to this result in their psychologies. They as- 
sert that the mind arrives at insoluble contradictions, 
but they affirm that all practical life, all moral life, 
presupposes that the category of freedom is the ulti- 
mate and absolute one. Fate would, according to them, 
apply only to appearances or phenomena, while free- 
dom would apply to being-in-itself or to all true reality. 
§ 82. The following argument is offered as a 
specimen of the dialectic method of investigating the 
psychological value of such categories of the mind. 
We first assume the universal and absolute validity of 
the category in question, defining it in its widest 
scope, and then look at the result as regards its own 
validity. In other words, we apply it to itself and see 
whether it contradicts itself. If a category contra- 
dicts itself when made universal, it is manifestly not 
a category of the absolute, but only one side of some 
more comprehensive category. Thus we shall see that 
fate or necessity is only one side of the more compre- 
hensive category of self-activity or freedom. (Com- 
pare this argument with Chapters III and YII.) 



FREEDOM VURSUS FATE. 129 

First, state the law or point of view of fate thus: 

1. All things are necessitated; each thing is ne- 
cessitated by the totality of conditions; hence what- 
ever is must he as it is, and under the conditions can 
not be otherwise. 

It will be noted that this makes each thing- dependent 
on its environment and derivative from that environment. 
If it has anything- orig-inal and underived, it is to that ex- 
tent not necessitated by external conditions, but is self- 
existent. But derivation implies chang-e — something- to be 
derived must have passed over from an original state of 
being-, in the cause or condition, to a derivative state of 
being-, in the effect or condition. Hence we have to con- 
sider next the phase of chang-e necessarily involved in the 
assumption of being-s determined by fate. 

2. Change exists and must have existed if there 
is such a thing as derivation. In change, something 
new begins and something old ceases to be. But 
according to the above definition of fate, the thing 
before the change was necessitated to be what it was 
by the totality of conditions, and the thing after the 
change, likewise, is necessitated to be what it is by the 
totality of conditions. Under the same conditions a 
thing must always remain as it is and can not change. 
Here it becomes evident, therefore, that any change 
of thing or event presupposes a change in the totality 
of conditions, and this is the rock on which our law 
of fate suffers shipwreck, as we shall see. 



130 PSYCHOLOGIC METHOD. 

§ 83. 3. Any change whatever presupposes an an- 
terior change in the totality of conditions. For as the 
two states of the thing, the one before and the other 
after the change, are different, they require two dif- 
ferent totahties of conditions to make them possible 
according to the law of fate. Otherwise the totality 
of conditions would admit two different things, and 
could not be said to necessitate either. A mould that 
could cast a cube or a globe equally well could not 
be said to mould or give form to either. Hence un- 
less we admit change into the totality of conditions, 
we are constrained to deny the necessity of proceed- 
ing from that totality and to affirm chance or con- 
tingency in its place. If things change, their change 
is a proof that there was no constraining necessity 
in the shape of a totality of existing conditions. There 
must have been a contingency — this thing had other 
possibilities of existence, and it was not necessitated to 
remain in one state of reality rather than some other 
state which was possible to it. But the category of 
chance does not explain anything, but, on the con- 
trary, needs explanation itself; for that which can 
change a possible state of a thing into a real state of it 
must be a causal energy. Hence with the idea of 
chance, as well as with the idea of two different totali- 
ties of conditions, we are thrown back upon the idea 



FREEDOM VUESUS FATE. 131 

of causal energy, which lifts us above the idea of fate, 
as we shall see in the next consideration. 

§ 84. 4. How can we construe the change in the 
totality of conditions? If change exists, it either dis- 
proves necessity altogether, or else presupposes change 
in the totality of conditions. The totality changes, 
but there is nothing outside of the totality to neces- 
sitate it; if it is necessitated, it necessitates itself. If 
it moves, it moves itself, for there is no environment 
from which it can derive its motion or change. The 
totality includes all the conditions. If the totality of 
conditions changes, it changes itself, and we have 
found self-activity, therefore, as the ultimate ground 
of all change, and of all conditioning necessity as well. 
Self-activity, self-determination, causa sui (self- 
cause), spontaneity, freedom, will-power, life, cogni- 
tion, instinct — these all involve phases of this neces- 
sity that necessitates itself, and is therefore self -active. 

§ 85. 5. The thought of necessity or fate — which 
is the thought of thing and environment elevated to 
a universal category, the category of quality — there- 
fore shows itself, when dialectically considered, to be 
grounded in the idea of freedom (self -activity or self- 
determination), and we have now before us the ex- 
planation of the psychological difficulty which makes 
the thought of the freedom of the will seem impos- 



132 PSYCHOLOGIC METHOD. 

sible to agnostics and to all people just beginning to 
think logically. It has never occurred to their minds 
that such a category as quality can possibly be limited 
and subordinate. It is the category of all external 
observation, and it seems to be absolute. It contra- 
dicts the internal category of self-activity, and the 
novitiate thinker sets the latter aside, supposing that 
if one of the two categories is illusory it must be that 
of self-activity, for he can perceive by his senses the 
actual existence of things with environments, while 
he can not even fancy or represent self-activity as 
having being. But careful reflection will show him, 
as it shows us, that the two categories do not contra- 
dict, but that the category of fate or necessity belongs 
to a lower order than the category of self-activity 
— fate is partial; self-activity, total. The category 
of necessity belongs to the realm of effects, of phe- 
nomena, or manifestations, while the category of 
self -activity or self-determination belongs to the realm 
of noumena, or self-existences and causal energies. 
^Necessity belongs to dependent being; self -activity 
and freedom to independent being. 

This is one of the most important of all subjects in 
psycholog-y, because it is the foundation of the doctrine of 
moral responsibility, and of jurisprudence as well as of 
relig-ion. Quality is the categ-ory of otherness (edrcpou) of 
Plato (see The Sophist, 255-259); the somewhat and other 



FREEDOM VERSUS FATE. I33 

(Etivas und Anderes) of Heg-el (Logik, second edition, vol. i, 
p. 116) ; the finite opposed to the infinite of theology. 

§ 86. One should be careful not to confound logi- 
cal necessity with fatalistic necessity. Logical neces- 
sity is the necessity of consistency between form and 
content — a formal necessity and not an external neces- 
sity, although it is often confounded with it, as the 
following will show: Logical necessity is a necessity 
of self -identity. Creation is a necessary attribute of 
God, because freedom implies creative power or origi- 
nation of energy and determination. Hence God, if 
free, is creative because it is a necessity of his being, 
since it belongs to his perfection. If it did not belong 
to him he would be imperfect. ^' God must be per- 
fect " is therefore an equivalent statement to " God 
must be free " or ^^ God must be creative." Creation 
is a free act; though necessary, it is not compelled by 
any external necessity. It is only a logical necessity, 
and not an external necessity. It is a logical necessity 
that the first principle should be self-active or self- 
determining, and hence free intelligence. But such 
logical necessity does not imply or involve fate or ex- 
ternal constraint. This is a dialectic circle: (1) The 
first is necessarily free, (2) but is therefore necessitated 
and is not free; (3) hence not being free, it is not 
necessitated to be free, (4) and hence is free in spite 



134: PSYCHOLOGIC METHOD. 

of (2). Logical necessity is spoken of in (1); fatal- 
istic necessity in (2) and (3) ; (2) and (3) cancel each 
other and leave (1) or (4). 

In this chapter we have considered the general psy- 
chological conditions of the entire thought of freedom 
of the will, and we have seen that the difficulty arises 
further back than the question of the will. Most persons 
deny the freedom of the will because they do not see 
the possibility of any freedom whatever in the universe 
— not even the possibility of God's freedom. 



CHAPTEK XYIII. 

Old and New Psychologies compared as to their 
Provinces and their Results for Education. A 
Revieiu. 

§ 87. As a review of Part I, I will in this con- 
cluding chapter offer some general considerations of 
a popular character in the nature of a summary of 
the educational bearings of the old and new psycholo- 
gies. Under the term " new psychology '' I include 
only two classes of investigation — namely, what is 
known as " physiological psychology/' dating from 
the discovery of Broca in 1861 (see above, § 64), and 
what is knowm as " child study." * All other studies 

* Including the researches of Prof. Preyer and of Dr. 
Stanley Hall, their co-workers and disciples. 



OLD AND NEW PSYCHOLOGIES. I35 

of mind, from ancient times to the present time, 
whether based on induction or deduction, whether 
a 'priori, as rational psychology, or a posteriori, as 
empirical psychology, are called the '' old psycholo- 
gy/' Both of those psychologies are of importance, 
and neither one is a substitute for the other, or to be 
neglected by the teacher who wishes to know scien- 
tifically the mind that he is supposed to educate. 

§ 88. In the first place, from the old psychology 
we learn that there is a constitution of the mind com- 
mon to all rational beings — a rational nature which 
may be discovered by introspection and distinguished 
from the transient and variable characteristics which 
are determined in large manner by environment and 
conditions of development. By far the most impor- 
tant knowledge from this source is the distinction 
of the soul into several stages, as that manifested in 
plant life, called by Aristotle the nutritive, or vege- 
tative, soul; the soul as active in sensation and loco- 
motion, or the animal soul; the rational soul mani- 
fested in imagination, memory, reflection, and in pure 
thought.* The distinctions of active and passive rea- 
son made by Aristotle in his famous treatise on the 
soul, and so often rediscovered or verified by |)ro- 



* Treated summarily in Chapter IV. 



136 PSYCHOLOGIC METHOD. 

found thinkers, in the history of philosophy, is the 
I^rinciple of this classification of soul-activities. On 
it is founded the philosophical doctrine of the immor- 
tality of the soul. In fact, not only the doctrine of 
immortality, but also the doctrines of theism and the 
freedom of the will, are based on this rock of the old 
psychology, developed by Aristotle out of the hints of 
Plato or Socrates. God, freedom, and immortality 
are the three good gifts of philosophy, according to 
^ovalis; * they are all derived from the insight that 
finds in pure thought the independent self-activity of 
the soul and sees in it the only possible type of inde- 
pendent being, the only form that a first principle 
of the world — a Creator — can have. The idea of self- 
activity is, moreover, the basal idea of free will. 

The very concept of will is impossible, on the basis 
of empirical thinking-; for the understanding-, as Cole- 
ridg-e defined it, deals with relations between objects, 
and finds causal relation everywhere, but not self-activity 
or will. It tries to explain each thing- throug-h its environ- 
ment — and it never rests until it has traced the phe- 
nomena of an object to a ground in something else out- 
side. 

§ 89. That the fundamental condition of introspec- 
tion is the admission of this idea of self-activity is evi- 
dent if we consider that the world of self -consciousness 

* See Carlyle's essay on Novalis in his Miscellanies. 



OLD AND NEW PSYCHOLOGIES. I37 

contains only feelings, volitions, and ideas. Each one 
of these is twofold, implying subject and object. 
There are two poles to each; feeUng is nothing un- 
less it has a subject that feels, and unless the self that 
feels is the object of the feeling. So volition implies 
a self that acts, and, moreover, a determination or 
limitation of the subject issuing in an objective deed 
— a volition has the twofold aspect of subject and 
object. So, too, an idea is always thought as a de- 
termination of the self which thinks it — or defines 
it; it is conceived by the mind; it, too, involves sub- 
ject and object. N^ow by no possibility can external 
observation discover any such twofold object in space 
and time. All objects of the senses are dead results 
or in a process of becoming through some external 
cause. If we discriminate dead objects from living 
objects, and recognise plants, animals, and men be- 
fore us, we do it because we interpret the forms, 
shapes, and movements before us as indicative of a 
self-determining soul within the object. We transfer 
to the object by an act of inference an internality of 
life, feeling, volition, or thought such as we know 
directly only by introspection, and can only know 
thus. 

To expand this theme, one would show the impor- 
tance of these distinctions of Aristotle, St. Thomas, and 



138 PSYCHOLOGIC METHOD. 

Leibnitz in making an account of the spiritual life of 
man, in inventorying* the principles of his civilization and 
making clear and consistent his views of the world. — To 
live is one thing, but to give a rational and consistent 
account of one's life is a different and difficult matter. 
The old psychology succeeded in doing this by these fun- 
damental distinctions, and all new attempts at psychology 
either prove abortive, or else soon fall into line with the 
old psychology, so far as these essentials are concerned — 
they end in affirming self-activity as more substantial 
than material things, and in the admission of various 
grades of realization of this self-activity, or soul. 



§ 90. Another very important step in this investi- 
gation of the contents of self -consciousness, which the 
German thinkers have added to the old psychology, is 
the recognition of the characteristic of universality 
and necessity as the criterion of what is in the con- 
stitution of mind itself as contradistinguished from 
experience or empirical content. Time and space, 
the categories of quality and quantity, the laws of 
causality, identity, and contradiction, the ideas of 
self-activity, moral responsibility, and religion, all 
transcend experience, and are found by introspec- 
tion. It is their application which constitutes ex- 
perience, and experience would be impossible unless 
the mind had in itself these powers a priori, for 
these powers make experience possible. If we could 
not furnish the intuitions of infinite space and time, 
we could not perceive objects of experience; nor un- 



OLD AND NEW PSYCHOLOGIES. 139 

less we could furnish the category of causality could 
we refer our sensations to objects as causes. 

Universal and necessary ideas are furnished by the 
mind itself, and not derived from experience, although our 
consciousness of them may date from our application of 
them to the content of experience. Formal logic, with 
its judgments and syllogisms, its figures and modes, should 
be regarded also as a part of rational psychology in so far 
as it reveals to us the forms of action of thinking reason. 
All these contributions of the old psychology are of price- 
less value, as giving us the means to understand the place 
w^e occupy in the universe w^ith our ideals of civilization. 
They furnish us directive powder, they give us the regu- 
lative ideals of education, religion, jurisprudence, poli- 
tics, and the general conduct of life. 

§ 91. Although the old psychology has furnished 
these substantial things, it has not furnished all that 
is desirable. There is a realm of conditions which 
must be understood before man can be made to realize 
his ideals. The product of I^ature is an animal, and 
not a civilized man. How can man react upon Na- 
ture; how can he ascend out of his own natural con- 
ditions; how can he rise from the stage of sense-per- 
ception to that of reflection; how from mere reflec- 
tion to mere thought; how can he put off his state 
of slavery to the category of thing and environment, 
and rise to the category of self-activity? This is to 
ask how we can ascend from a mechanical view of 

the world to an ethical view of it. Certainly we must 
13 



140 PSYCHOLOGIC METHOD. 

know the bodily conditions that limit or enthrall the 
soul. We must be able to recognise what activity 
tends to fix the soul in a lower order of thought and 
action, and what exercise will tend to lift.it to a 
higher order. 

To enumerate some of these enthralling conditions 
through which the soul passes necessarily, if it ever 
comes to the highest, we must name the influences and 
attractions of one's habitat, its climate and soil, its out- 
look, its means of connection with the rest of the world. 
Then next there is the race and stock of which one comes, 
black, red, yellow, or white — northern or southern Euro- 
pean — inheriting all the evil tendencies and all the good 
aspirations. Then the temperament and idiosyncrasy of 
the individual, as his natural talents or his genius — these 
all lie deep as predetermining causes in his career. — Then 
come other natural elements to be regarded — those of sex 
— the seven ages from infancy to senility — the physical 
conditions that belong to sleep and dreams and the waking 
state, the health and disease of the body, the insane tend- 
encies, the results of habits in hardening and fixing the 
life of the individual in some lower round of activity. 
If he is alone the efficient cause or the free will, at least 
these conditions of habitat, race, and stock furnish the 
material that he is to quarry and build into the temple of 
his life — a Parthenon, a Pantheon, or only a mud hut or 
a snow house. 

§ 92. Of all these, the laws of growth from in- 
fancy to mature age especially concern the educator. 
There is for man, as contrasted with lower animals, 
a long period of helpless infancy. Prof. John Fiske 
has shown the importance of this fact to the theory 



OLD AND NEW PSYCHOLOGIES. 141 

of evolution as applied to man.* Basing his theory 
on some hints of Wallace and Spencer, he has ex- 
plained how the differentiation of the primitive sav- 
age man from the animal groups must have been 
acomplished. Where psychical life is complex there 
is not time for all capacities to become organized 
before birth. The prolongation of helpless infancy is 
required for the development of man's adaptations 
to the spiritual environment implied in the habits 
and arts and modes of behaviour of the social com- 
munity into which man is born. He is born first as 
an infant body, he must be born second as an ethical 
soul, or else he can not become human. The con- 
ditions are of extreme complexity. This is the most 
important contribution of the doctrine of evolution 
to education. 

§ 93. In the light of this discovery we may see 
what an important bearing the results of child study 
and physiological psychology will have on education. 



* Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler has pointed out that the 
Greek philosopher Anaximander, more than two thousand 
years ag-o, spoke of the prolonged period of infancy as 
a reason for believing" that in the beginning" man had an 
origin from animals of a different species from himself. 
The Greek did not perceive the relation of this prolonged 
infancy to the adjustment of the complex physical and 
spiritual activities of the child to his environment. 



14:2 PSYCHOLOGIC METHOD. 

Tor it is evident that if the child is at any epoch of 
his long period of helplessness inured into any habit 
or fixed form of activity belonging to a lower stage 
of development that the tendency will be to arrest 
growth at that standpoint and make it difficult or 
next to impossible to continue the growth of the child 
into higher and more civilized forms of soul activity. 

A severe drill in mechanical habits of memorizing or 
calculating-, any overcultivation of sense-perception in ten- 
der years, may so arrest the development of the soul in a 
mechanical method of thinking as to prevent further grov^^th 
into spiritual insight. Especially on the second plane of 
thought which follows that of sense-perception and the 
mechanical stage of thinking — namely, the stage of noticing 
mere relations and of classifying by mere likeness or dif- 
ference, or even the search for causal relations — there is 
most danger of this arrested development. The absorption 
of the gaze upon adjustments within the machine prevents 
us from seeing the machine as a whole. The attention to de- 
tails of colouring and drawing may prevent one from see- 
ing the significance of the great work of art. The habit of 
parsing every sentence that one sees may prevent one from 
enjoying a sonnet of Wordsworth. Too much counting 
and calculating may at a tender age set the mind in the 
mechanical habit of looking for mere numerical relations 
in whatever it sees. Certainly the young savage who is 
taught to see in Nature only the traces that mark the 
passage of a wild animal, or perhaps of a M^arrior foe, 
has stopped his growth of observation at a point not very 
much above that of the hound that hunts by scent. — 
And yet all these mechanical studies are necessary at 
some period in the school; they can not be replaced ex- 
cept by others equally objectionable in the same aspect. 
The question is, then, where to stop and change to other 



OLD AND NEW PSYCHOLOGIES. 143 

and higher branches in time to preserve the full momen- 
tum of progress that the child has made. Prof. C. M. 
Woodward has pointed out that the educational effect of 
manual training is destroyed by having the pupils work 
for the market. It turns the attention toward the train- 
ing in skill, and the educational effect which comes of first 
insight is afterward neglected. The first machine made 
is an education to its maker; the second and subsequent 
machines made are only a matter of habit. To keep the 
intellect out of the abyss of habit, and to make the ethical 
behaviour more and more a matter of unquestioning habit, 
seems to be the desideratum. 

§ 94. Child study will perhaps find its most profit- 
able field of investigation in this matter of arrested 
development. If it can tell the teacher how far to 
push thoroughness toward the borders of mechanical 
perfection, and where to stop just before induration 
and arrest set in, it will reform all our methods of 
teaching.* And it can and will' do this. The new 

* Child study in the United States, under the distin- 
guished leadership of Dr. Stanley Hall, has not, it is true, 
done much in the study of arrested development. But there 
is a good reason for it. The province, being almost a new 
field for science, had to be mapped out first and its objects 
inventoried. In this work of inventorying an immense 
task has been accomplished by his disciples, but more 
especially by Dr. Hall himself. The beginnings must 
necessarily be quantitative. Take Dr. Hall's excellent 
study of dolls for an example of the quantitative survey 
of the field (see Pedagogical Seminary, vol. iv, p. 129), or 
his study of a sand pile (Princeton Keview) for a quali- 
tative inventory of the contents of an interesting speci- 
men of the social education of boys through play. Fix 



144 PSYCHOLOGIC METHOD. 

psychology, in its two phases of direct physiological 
study of brain and nerves, and its observation of child 
development, will show us how to realize by educa- 
tion the ideals of the highest civilization. The pro- 
longed infancy of man will be in less danger of cur- 
tailment through vicious school methods. 

The orphaned and outcast child becomes precociously 
world-wise. But the school can scarcely reclaim the gamin 
from the streets of Paris or New^ York. He has become 
as cunning- and self-helpful as the water-rat, but not in 
ethical or spiritual methods. He should have been held 
back from the bitter lessons of life by the shielding- hand 
of the family. He would then have become a positive in- 
fluence for civilization in its heig-ht and depth. As a 
gamin,* he can live a life only a little above that of the 
water-rat, and is fitted only to feed the fires of revolu- 
tion. 



the order of succession, the date, duration, the locality, 
the environment, the extent of the sphere of influence, the 
number of manifestations and the number of cases of 
intermittence, and we have an exact inventory of a phe- 
nomenon. When stated in quantitative terms, any one's 
experience is useful to other observers. It is easy to 
verify it or add an increment to it. By quantification, sci- 
ence grows continually without retrog-rade movements. 

* Victor Hug-o has given a picture of the gamines life 
and shown his genesis through the neglect of family care 
in infancy, in Parts III, IV, and V of his Les Miserables — 
little Gavroche and his two brothers, a solemn and pathetic 
history ! 



SECOND PAKT. 

PSYCHOLOGIC SYSTEM. 
145 



SECOND PART. 

PSYCHOLOGIC SYSTEM. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

Method and System in Psychology, 

§ 95. A SYSTEM arises through the application of 
a method to all the details. A method is derived 
from a principle. Thus principle, method, and sys- 
tem are the three phases of a science. Principle, 
taken in this sense, includes the generating forces that 
produce and organize a province of facts. The prin- 
ciple of geology includes the formative forces that 
produce the earth crust and give it its shape. The 
principle of psychology includes the self-activity as 
it realizes itself, on the basis of assimilation, in the 
activities above plant life. Aristotle, it is true, makes 
it include the plant life, taking it to be the science of 
the soul in general — of the plant as well as of the 
animal and man. But ordinarily we limit the use 

of the word psychology to the functions above plant 

147 



148 PSYCHOLOGIC SYSTEM. 

life, including feeling, sense-perception, recollection, 
memory, imagination, reflection, understanding, rea- 
son, will, etc. 

§ 96. It is necessary to take the word principle in 
the sense of productive cause, when we use it, as here, 
in connection with method and system. The forma- 
tive process that makes the earth crust shows the na- 
ture of its action to the geologist, and he comes to 
know by degrees its method of working. Method is 
the mode of acting of the productive principle. Self- 
activity or self -definition manifests its form of acting 
or its method, and psychology observes and records 
this in various ways. One phase of it is described in 
the account of the three figures of the syllogism; 
another phase in the deduction of the moral virtues 
which show the method by which the will preserves 
its freedom. There is a productive principle in art 
and literature which reveals its method; another in 
sense-perception; still another in sociology; others in 
other activities of the soul. 

§ 97. In Part I each chapter has given at least 
a glimpse of the method of the soul in some one or 
other of its phases of action. But no method has been 
followed out so far as to form an organic whole. If 
method is followed, the parts unite and a systematic 
whole arises. It has been said already that science 



METHOD AND SYSTEM IN PSYCHOLOGY. 149 

is a collection of facts systematically united in such 
a manner that each throws light on all and all on 
each. This is explained by saying that each fact 
seen in the light of its producing principle reveals 
the method of that principle. A series of facts ar- 
ranged in the order of their production may thus make 
clear the sequence of the whole action of the cause, 
and give the entire method. 

§ 98. A productive principle will result in a 
progressive development. At first it will be realized 
only partially, but later on it will be realized with 
greater and greater degrees of perfection. It is, in 
other words, a growth; only a growth can make an 
organic system. Time reveals the several steps of 
realization, and each step is the basis for the next. 
A logical system, it is true, does not take the form 
of growth in time, but it must be a growth from 
what is incomplete toward that which is complete — 
a successive addition of what was implied but not 
stated. 

Aristotle has, in his De Anima, g-iven a sketch of 
the views reg-arding- the soul held by his predecessors 
and his contemporaries; then he follows with an account 
of the veg*etative, animal, and rational stages of the 
development of the soul arranged in as systematic a 
manner as the knowledge of his time and his philo- 
sophic insig"ht admitted. Now, as then, a systematic 
exposition of psychology will have to connect these 



150 PSYCHOLOGIC SYSTEM. 

phases and show how each is a step in the realization 
of mind. There will remain facts of observation which 
we are not able to explain as yet by the productive prin- 
ciple, because we can not yet fix them in their proper 
places and connect them with the steps that immediately 
precede or follow. All the sciences have unexplained data 
which have not yet been thus connected with antecedent 
and consequent steps, and for this reason are not yet 
organic parts of the same. But all sciences have suc- 
ceeded in properly arranging- the great provinces of their 
data in such a way as to explain each by the others and 
make each in turn help in the explanation of the rest. 
Some sciences (e. g., geology and botany) have progressed 
in this work of interpreting their data far into the minute 
details; others, like psychology and anthropology, have 
reached the order of genesis of only a few of the typical 
facts. So long as the place of a fact is not understood, 
its function can not be comprehended. Suppose that the 
tadpole were thought to be a higher development of the 
frog, coming after the full-grown amphibian, evolution 
would then be reversed. Suppose that sense-perception 
were taken for the perfection of the intellct, and memory, 
reflection, and insight taken to be stages of degeneration, 
the kind of psychology would be as bad as the philosophy 
of religion which took sun-myths as the normal form of 
religious thought, and explained all religious ideas as a 
disease of language. In fact, such a psychology has actual- 
ly undertaken to explain philosophic thought as a disease 
of language, differing from religion only by reifying 
instead of personifying general terms, attributing to ab- 
stractions a higher order of existence than the objects 
of the senses, while religion personifies general terms and 
makes a mythology. 



INOEGANIC AND ORGANIC BEINGS. 151 



CHAPTEK XX. 

The Individuality of Inorganic and Organic 
Beings. 

§ 99. Human experience has distinguislied from 
time immemorial four classes of individualities: (a) 
men, (h) animals, (c) plants, (d) inorganic things. 
Three classes can be made by including men with 
animals, or two can be made by uniting men, animals, 
and plants as the organic or living class of beings, and 
opposing to it the class of inorganic beings or condi- 
tions. Science inherits this distinction into four great 
classes from the unscientific experience of the race, 
but it progresses toward a clearer definition of the 
boundary lines and the laws of transition and develop- 
ment. It reclassifies what had been wrongfully classi- 
fied. While the savage or ancient man includes 
many inorganic beings in the class of organic, and 
peoples ISTature with good and evil spirits, science is 
disposed to find much in organic (or life) processes 
to be purely inorganic and mechanical. 

§ 100. Inorganic being does not possess individ- 
uality for itself. A mountain is not an individual in 
the sense that a tree is. It is an aggregate of sub- 



152 PSYCHOLOGIC SYSTEM. 

stances, but not an organic unity. The unity of 
place gives certain peculiarities and idiosyncrasies, 
but the mountain is an aggregate of materials, and its 
conditions are an aggregate of widely differing tem- 
peratures, degrees of illumination, moisture, etc. 

§ 101. Atoms, if atoms exist as they are con- 
ceived in the atomic theory, can not be true individ- 
uals, for they possess attraction and repulsion, and by 
either of these forces express their dependence on 
others, and thus submerge their individuality in the 
mass with which they are connected by attraction or 
sundered by repulsion. Distance in space changes 
the properties of the atom — its attraction and repul- 
sion are conceived as depending on distance from 
other atoms, and its union with other atoms develops 
new qualities and conceals or changes the old quali- 
ties. Hence the environment is essential to the atomic 
individuality — and this means the denial of its inde- 
pendence. If the environment is a factor, then the 
individuality is joint product, and the atom is not 
a true individual, but only a constituent. 

§ 102. In an organism each part is reciprocally 
means and end to all the other parts — all parts are 
mediated through each. Mere aggregates are not 
individuals, but aggregates wherein the parts are at 
all times in mutual reaction with the other parts 



INORGANIC AND ORGANIC BEINGS. 153 

through and by means of the whole^ are individuals. 
The individual stands in relation to other individuals 
and to the inorganic world. It is a manifestation 
of energy acting as conservative of its own individu- 
ality, and destructive of other individualities or of 
inorganic aggregates that form its environment. It 
assimilates other beings to itself and digests them, or 
imposes its own form on them and makes them or- 
ganic parts of itself; or, on the other hand, it elimi- 
nates portions from itself, returning to the inorganic 
what has been a part of itself. 

§ 103. Individuality, therefore, is not a mere 
thing, but an energy manifesting itself in things. In 
the case of the plant there is this unity of energy, but 
the unity does not exist for itself in the form of feel- 
ing. The animal feels, and, in feeling, the organic 
energy exists for itself, all parts coming to a unity 
in this feeling, and realizing an individuality vastly 
superior to the individuality manifested in the plant. 

That which is dependent upon external circumstances, 
and is only a circumstance itself, is not capable of educa- 
tion. Only a " self " can be educated; and a " self " is a 
conscious unity — a " self-activity," a being- which is 
throug-h itself, and not one that is made by surrounding 
conditions. Ag-ain, in order that a being possess a ca- 
pacity for education, it must have the ability to realize 
within itself what belongs to its species or race. If an 
acorn could develop itself so that it could realize not only 



154: PSYCHOLOGIC SYSTEM. 

its own possibility as an oak, but its entire species, and 
all the varieties of oaks within itself, and without losing 
its particular individuality, it would possess the capacity 
for education. But an acorn in reality can not develop 
its possibility without the destruction of its own indi- 
viduality. The acorn vanishes in the oak tree, and the 
crop of acorns which succeeds is not again the same acorn, 
except in kind or species. " The species lives, but the in- 
.dividual dies," in the vegetable world. So it is in the ani- 
mal world. The brute lives his particular life, unable to 
develop within himself the form of his entire species, and 
still less the form of all animal life. And yet the animal 
possesses self-activity in the powers of locomotion, sense- 
perception, feeling, emotion, and other elementary shapes. 
Both animal and plant react against surroundings, and 
possess more or less power to assimilate what is foreign 
to them. The plant takes moisture and elementary in- 
organic substances, and converts them into nutriment 
wherewith to build its cellular growth. The animal has 
not only this power of nutrition, which assimilates its 
surroundings, but also the power of feeling, which is a 
wonderful faculty. Feeling reproduces within the organ- 
ism of the animal the external condition; it is an ideal 
reproduction of the surroundings. The environment of 
the plant is seized upon and appropriated, being changed 
Into the form of sap for the nourishment of that plant; 
but there is no ideal reproduction of the environment in 
the form of feeling, as in the animal. 



FUNCTIONS OF PLANTS AND ANIMALS. I55 



CHAPTEE XXI. 

Psychologic Functions of Plants and Animals 
compared. 

§ 104. The plant grows and realizes by its form 
or shape some phase or phases of the organic energy 
that constitutes the individuality of the plant. Roots, 
twigs, buds, blossoms, fruits, and seeds, all together 
manifest or express that organic energy, but they 
lack thorough mutual dependence, as compared with 
the parts of the animal who feels his unity in each 
part or limb. The individuality of the plant is com- 
paratively an aggregate of individualities, while the 
animal is a real unity in each part through feeling, 
and hence there is no such independence in the parts 
of the animal as in the plant. 

§ 105. Feeling, sense-perception, and locomotion 

characterize the individuality of the animal, although 

he retains the special powers which made the plant an 

organic being. The plant could assimilate or digest — 

that is to say, it could react on its environment and 

impress it with its own form, making the inorganic 

into vegetable cells and adding them to its own struc- 
13 



156 PSYCHOLOGIC SYSTEM. 

ture. Feeling, especially in the form of sense-percep- 
tion, is the process of reproducing the environment 
within the organism in an ideal form. 

§ 106. Sense-perception thus stands in contrast 
to the vegetative power of assimilation or nutrition, 
which is the highest form of energy in the plant. 
[N'utrition is a subordinate energy in the animal, while 
it is the supreme energy of the plant. Nutrition re- 
lates to its environment only negatively and de- 
structively in the act of assimilating it, or else it adds 
mechanically to the environment by separating and 
excreting from itself what has become inorganic. But 
feeling, even as it exists in the most elementary forms 
of sense-perception, can reproduce the environment 
ideally; it can form for itself, within, a modification 
corresponding to the energy of the objects that make 
up its environment. This is the essential thing to 
keep constantly before the mind in psychology — that 
feeling is not a mere passivity of the soul, but an 
activity which makes an internal state responsive to 
the external. Compared with the higher faculties, 
it is passive because it lacks the repeated self -activities 
added by reflection. 

§ 107. Sentient being stands in reciprocal action 
with its environment, but it seizes the impression re- 
ceived from without and adds to it by its own activity. 



FUNCTIONS OF PLANTS AND ANIMALS. 157 

so as to reconstruct for itself the external object. It 
receives an impression, and is in so far passive to the 
action of its environment; but it reacts on this by 
forming within itself a counterpart to the impression 
out of its own energy. The animal individuality is 
an energy that can form limits within itself. On re- 
ceiving an impression from the environment, it forms 
limits to its own energy commensurate with the im- 
pression it receives, and thus frames for itself a per- 
ception, or an internal copy of the object. It is not 
a copy so much as an estimate or measure effected 
by producing a limitation within itself similar to the 
impression it has received. Its own state, as thus 
limited to reproduce the impression, is its idea or per- 
ception of the external environment as acting upon it. 

§ 108. The plant receives impressions from with- 
out, but its power of reaction is extremely limited, 
and does not rise to feeling. The beginnings of such 
reaction in plants as develops into feeling in animals 
are studied by intelligent biologists with the liveliest 
interest, for in this reaction are seen the ascent of in- 
dividuality through a discrete degree — the ascent 
from nutrition to feeling. 

§ 109. E'utrition is a process of destruction of the 
individuality of the foreign substance taken up from 
the environment, and likewise a process of impressing 



158 PSYCHOLOGIC SYSTEM. 

on it a new individuality, that of the vegetative form, 
or the nutritive soul, as Aristotle calls it. Feeling is 
a process of reproducing within the individuality, by 
self -limitation or self-determination, a form that is 
like the external energy that has produced an im- 
pression upon it. The sentient being shapes itself 
into the form of impression, or reproduces the im- 
pression, and thus perceives the character of the ex- 
ternal energy by the nature of its own effort re- 
quired to reproduce the impression. 

§ 110. The difference between a nutritive process 
and a perceptive or sentient process is one of degree, 
but a discrete degree. Both processes are reactions on 
what is foreign; but the nutritive is a real process, 
destructive of the foreign object, while the sentient 
is an ideal or reproductive process that does not affect 
the foreign object. The nutritive is thus the oppo- 
site of the sentient — it destroys and assimilates; the 
latter reproduces. Perception is objective, a self-de- 
termination in the form of the object — it transforms 
the subject into the object; nutrition is subjective 
in that it transmutes the object into the subject and 
leaves no object. Perception preserves its own indi- 
viduality and the individuality of its object while 
reproducing it, for it limits itself by its own energy 
in reproducing the form of the external. 



FUNCTIONS OF PLANTS AND ANIMALS. 159 

The growth of the plant is through assimilation of 
external substances. It reacts against its surroundings 
and digests them, and grows through the nutrition thus 
formed. All beings that can not react against surround- 
ings and modify them lack individuality. Individuality 
begins with this power of reaction and modification of 
external surroundings. Even the power of cohesion is a 
rudimentary form of reaction and. of special individuality. 
In the case of the plant, the reaction is real, but not also 
ideal. The plant acts upon its food, and digests it, or 
assimilates it, and imposes its form on that which it draws 
within its organism. It does not, however, reproduce 
within itself the externality as that external exists for 
itself. This would be a complete victory over the external 
— to be able to posit it as well as to negate it. It does not 
form within itself an idea, or even a feeling of that which 
is external to it. Its participation in the external world 
is only that of real modification of it or through it; either 
the plant digests the external, or the external limits it, 
and prevents its growth, so that where one begins the 
other ceases. Hence it is that the elements — the matter 
of which the plant is composed, that which it has assimi- 
lated even— still retain a large degree of foreign power or 
force— a large degree of externality which the plant has 
not been able to annul or to digest. The plant-activity 
subdues its food, changes its shape and its place, sub- 
ordinates it to its use; but what the matter brings with 
it and still retains of the world beyond the plant, does 
not exist for the plant; the plant can not read or inter- 
pret the rest of the universe from that small portion of 
it which it has taken up within its own organism. And 
yet the history of the universe is impressed on each parti- 
cle of matter, as well within the plant as outside of it, 
and it could be understood were there capacities for 
recognising it. The reaction of the life of the plant upon 
the external world is not sufficient to constitute a fixed, 
abiding individuality. With each accretion there is some 
change of particular individuality. Every addition by 
growth to a plant is by the sprouting out of new indi- 



160 PSYCHOLOGIC SYSTEM. 

viduals — new plants — a ceaseless multiplication of indi- 
viduals, and not the preservation of the same individual. 
The species is preserved, but not the particular individual. 
Each limb, each twig, even each leaf is a new individual, 
which grows out from the previous growth as the first 
sprout grew from the seed. Each part furnishes, as it 
were, a soil for the next. When a j)lant no longer sends 
out new individuals, we say it is dead. The life of the 
plant is only a life of nutrition. Aristotle called vegetable 
life " the nutritive soul," and the life of the animal the 
" feeling," or sensitive soul. — Since nutrition is only an 
activity of preservation of the general form in new indi- 
viduals — only the life of the species, and not the life of 
the permanent individual — we see that in the vegetable 
world we do not possess a being that can be educated, 
for no individual of it can realize within itself the species; 
its realization of the species is a continual process of 
going out of itself into new individuals, but no activity of 
return to itself, so as to preserve tJie identity of an indi- 
vidual. 



CHAPTEE XXII. 

Feelings and Emotio7is. 

§ 111. With feeling or sensibility we come to a 
being that reacts on tlie external world in a far higher 
manner than nutrition, and realizes a more wonderful 
form of individuality. The animal possesses, in com- 
mon with the plant, a process of assimilation and nu- 
trition. Moreover, he possesses a capacity to feel. 
Through feeling, or sensation, all the parts of his 



FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS. IQl 

extended organism are united in one centre. He is 
one individual, and not a bundle of separate indi- 
viduals, as a plant is. With feeling, likewise, are 
joined locomotion and desire. For these are counter- 
parts of feeling. He feels — i. e., lives as one indi- 
visible unity throughout his organism and controls it, 
and moves the parts of his body. Desire is more than 
mere feeling. Mere feeling alone is the perception 
of the external within the being, hence an ideal re- 
production of the external world. In feeling, the 
animal exists not only within himself, but also passes 
over his limit, and has for object the reality of the 
external world that limits him. Hence feeling is the 
perception of his finiteness — his limits are his defects, 
his needs, wants, inadequateness — his separation from 
the world as a whole. In feeling, the animal per- 
ceives his separation from the rest of the world, and 
also his union with it. Feeling expands into appetite 
and desire when the external world, or some portion 
of it, is seen as ideally belonging to the limited unity 
of the animal being. It is beyond the limit, but 
ought to be assimilated within the limited individu- 
ality of the animal: I look on this piece of bread as 
potentially assimilated and added to my body. 

Mere feeling", when attentively considered, is found to 
contain these wonderful features of self -activity : it re- 



162 PSYCHOLOGIC SYSTEM. 

produces for itself the external world that limits it; it 
makes for itself an ideal object, which includes its own 
» self and its not-self at the same time. It is a hig-her form 
than mere nutrition, for nutrition destroys the nature 
of such externality as it receives into itself, while feeling 
preserves the external in its foreign individuality. But 
through feeling the animal ascends to appetite and desire, 
and sees the independent externality as an object for its 
acquisition, and through locomotion it is enabled to seize 
and appropriate it in a degree which the plant did not 
possess. 

§ 112. Feeling may be said to be intellect and will 
in an unconscious form. On the side of unconscious 
intellect we have all the feelings that are passive or 
contemplative — sensations, emotions, and affections. 
On the side of unconscious will we have instincts, ap- 
petites, and desires. On one side the feelings look 
toward the intellect, and tend to become conscious and 
pass over into cognitions, motives, and reflections. On 
the other side, the feelings tend to rise into conscious 
volition, and become deliberate and responsible. 

A. On the intellectual side we have (a) sensation, 
which is partly physical, using the five sense-organs 
and the general or common sense — sometimes called 
the feelings of vitality (as in such sensations as rest 
and weariness, sickness and health), {h) Emotions — 
(1) hope, terror, despair, fear, contempt, etc.; (2) 
aesthetic pleasure in the presence of the beautiful and 
sublime; (3) the religious emotions, (c) Affections, 



FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS. 163 

benevolence (or kindness, sympathy, pity, mercy, 
etc.), gratitude, friendship, family love, philanthropy, 
etc., and the opposite affections of malice, wrath, jeal- 
ousy, envy, etc. 

B. On the will side w^e have (a) instincts which 
move us unconsciously to acts performed by us as 
animals — laughing, crying, winking, dodging a mis- 
sile thrown at one, etc. (b) Appetites for food and 
drink, sleep and exercise, etc. (c) Desires for happi- 
ness, or pleasure, or knowledge, and such other desires 
as ambition, avarice, vanity, pride, etc. 

It will be noted that division (&) of the intellectual 
feeling's presupposes as their basis the third stage of 
knowing in the eesthetie and religious feelings, and that 
division (c) includes social feelings. 

§ 113. How to educate the feelings? They can 
not be educated directly and as such, precisely be- 
cause they are feelings and immediate. But they can 
be educated indirectly through the intellect and will. 
The good feelings may be strengthened and the evil 
repressed by correct intellectual views and the adop- 
tion of proper motives. The instinctive action, ac- 
cording to bad motives, can be inhibited by the will, 
and correct habitual action substituted for it. 

(A.) Feeling is immediate, a consciousness of a direct 
impulse of Nature, of that which has become a part of 



164 PSYCHOLOGIC SYSTEM. 

one's nature, and of something- alien struggling against 
absorption by one's nature. Feelings are of two kinds: 
(a) Primary feelings in order of time, those that are in- 
herited appear in the child at first; (6) secondary feelings 
in order of time, those that result from intellect and will 
which adopt a course of action for some conscious pur- 
pose, and then by repeated volitions fix that course of 
action as a habit, in which form the conscious element of 
purpose and volition fades out and the act becomes un- 
conscious and sinks into the form of feeling again. This 
secondary kind of feeling is entirely under the control 
of education. 

(B.) A proper view may be taught the intellect and 
made to become the conviction of the pupil. He may be 
trained to act habitually according to that conviction; it 
will soon become a matter of feeling with him. The result 
of all school education is heart culture, whether intended 
or not. But if partial, whether of intellect only or will 
only, the result is not abiding. If the school enforces 
a correct habit by authority, requiring it strictly of each 
pupil, say, a courteous bearing toward one's fellows, this 
will go a long way, but it may be uprooted by a mental 
conviction which has not been overcome that discourtesy 
is the proper thing (i. e., for example, that courtesy is in- 
sincerity and deceit). So, too, a correct view may be of 
little avail if the opposite habit is allowed to stand and is 
not uprooted by the necessary will training in habit. Feel- 
ing is not co-ordinate with intelligence and will. Intel- 
lect and will are co-ordinate, but feeling is the implicit 
unity out of which they rise. Education acts on intellect 
and will, and through habit and fixed conviction supplants 
the wrong feeling by a new feeling. 

§ 114. For the reason that feeling as sensation 
measures off, as it were, on its own organic energy — 
which exists for it in the feeling of self — the amount 
and kind of energy required to produce the impression 



FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS. 165 

made on it from without, it follows that sense-percep- 
tion is not only a reception of impressions, but also 
an act of introspection. By introspection it inter- 
prets the cause or occasion of the impression that is 
felt. Feeling arises only when the impression made 
on the organism is reproduced again within the self 
— only when it recognises the external cause by see- 
ing in and through its own energy the energy that 
has limited it. The degree of objectivity (or the 
ability to perceive the reality of the external power) 
is measured by the degree of introspection or the 
degree of clearness in which it perceives the amount 
and limit of the internal energy required to reproduce 
the impression. 

Having" noted these important characteristics of feel- 
ing- and assimilation, and found that reaction from the 
part against the whole — from the internal ag-ainst the 
external— belong-s to plant life and animal life, we may 
now briefly consider the ways in which sensation is par- 
ticularized. In the lower animals it is only the feeling" of 
touch; in hig-her org-anisms it becomes also localized as 
seeing", hearing", taste, and smell. These forms of sense- 
perception constitute a scale (as it were) of feeling". With 
touch, there is reproduction of externality, but the ideal- 
ity of the reproduction is not so complete as in the other 
forms. With taste, the feeling- cognizes the external object 
as undergoing dissolution, and assimilation within its 
own organism. We taste only what we are beginning 
to destroy by the first process of assimilation — that of eat- 
ing. In smell, we perceive chemical dissolution of bodies 
— it is more ideal than taste, because it does not proceed 



166 PSYCHOLOGIC SYSTEM. 

from a direct attack of the ego on the individuality of 
the object, but only from the attack of the entire ob- 
jective environment on it. In seeing- and hearing-, we 
have the forms of ideal sensibility. Hearing- perceives the 
attack made on the individuality of an external thing-, 
and its reaction in vibrations, which reveal to us its in- 
ternal nature — its cohesion, etc. In seeing-, w^e have the 
hig-hest form of sense-perception as the perception of 
things in their external independence — not as being- de- 
stroyed chemically, like the objects of taste and smell; 
not as being- attacked and resisting-, like the objects w^hich 
are knov^n throug-h the ear; not as mere limits to our 
organism, as in the sense of touch. The action of these 
forms of sensation must be considered more in detail. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

The Five Senses, 

§ 115. The energy presupposed in the act of feel- 
ing and sense-perception is a self-activity, but one 
that manifests itself in reproducing its environment 
ideally. It presupposes an organic energy of nutri- 
tion in which it has assimilated portions of the en- 
vironment and constructed for itself a body. In the 
body it has organized stages of feeling, constituting 
the ascending scale of sense-perception. In the plant 
the self-activity is limited to the time when it is 
acting on its food to assimilate it; it is intermittent 



THE FIVE SENSES. 167 

and dependent on the existence of the food in the 
environment. But in feeling the self-activity con- 
tinues as a reaction without attacking the object by 
a real process, as in the case of digestion. It is as 
if feeling is in some sort the digestive activity con- 
tinued without any food from without, the activity 
being reflected or turned inward and acting upon 
itself in feeling. Further on, in recollection and mem- 
ory, the self -activity does not require even the pres- 
ence of the object for its action. In imagination it 
does not require even a past object, but creates its 
object without beiilg tethered to its environment, 
present or past. 

a. First there is the sense of touch, containing 
all higher senses in potentiality. When the higher 
senses have not developed, or after they have been 
destroyed by accident, the sense of touch may be- 
come sufficiently delicate to perceive not only contact 
with bodies, but also the slighter modifications in- 
volved in the effects of taste and smell, and even in 
the vibrations of sound and light. 

h. The lowest form of special sense is taste, which 
is closely allied to nutrition. Taste perceives the 
phase of assimilation of the object, which is com- 
mencing within the mouth. The individuality of the 
object is attacked and it gives way, its organic product 



168 PSYCHOLOGIC SYSTEM. 

or inorganic aggregate suffering dissolution — taste 
perceives the dissolution. Substances that do not 
yield to the attack of the juices of the mouth have 
no taste. Glass and gold have little taste compared 
with salt and sugar. The sense of taste differs from 
the process of nutrition in the fact that it does not 
assimilate the body tasted, but reproduces ideally 
the energy that makes the impression on the sense- 
organ of taste. Even taste, therefore, is an ideal 
activity, although it is present only when the nutritive 
energy is assimilating — it perceives the object in a 
process of dissolution. 

c. Smell is another specialization which perceives 
dissolution of objects in a more general form than 
taste. Both smell and taste perceive chemical changes 
that involve dissolution of the object. 

d. Hearing is a far more ideal sense, and notes 
a manifestation of resistance to dissolution. The co- 
hesion of a body is attacked and it resists, the attack 
and resistance take the form of vibration, and this 
vibration is perceived by the special sense of hearing. 
Taste and smell perceive the dissolution of the ob- 
ject, while hearing perceives the defence or success- 
ful reaction of an object in presence of an attack. 
Without elasticity — i. e., reaction on the part of co- 
hesion — there would be no vibration and no sound. 



THE FIVE SENSES. 169 

e. The sense of sight perceives the individuality 
of the object not in a state of dissolution before an 
attack, as in the case of taste and smell, nor en- 
gaged in active resistance to attack, as in case of 
hearing, but in its independence. Sight is therefore 
the most ideal sense, inasmuch as it is farthest re- 
moved from the real process of assimilation, in which 
one energy destroys the product of another energy 
and extends its sway over it. It is the altruistic sense, 
because it perceives the existence-for-itself of the ob- 
ject, and not merely its existence-for-others or its 
existence-for-me. 

Sense-perception, as the developed realization of the 
activity of feeling- on its intellectual side, belongs to the 
animal creation, including* man as an animal.. Locomo- 
tion also belongs to animals as the developed realization 
of feeling on its will side. Plant life' does not possess that 
self-activity M^hich returns into itself in the same indi- 
vidual, if we may so express it; it goes out of one individ- 
ual into another perpetually. Its identity is that of the 
species, but not of the individual. — In feeling there is a 
reaction, just as in the plant. This reaction is, however, in 
an ideal form — the reproduction of the external without 
assimilation of it — and especially is this the case in the 
sense of sigJit, though it is true of all forms of sensation 
to a less degree. — But all forms of sensibility are limited 
and special; they refer only to the present, in its forms of 
here and note. The animal can not feel what is not here 
and now. Even seeing is limited to what is present beforp 
it. When we reflect upon the significance of this limita- 
tion of sense-perception, we shall find that we need some 
higher form of self-activity still before we can realize the 



170 PSYCHOLOGIC SYSTEM. 

species in the individual — i. e., before we can obtain the 
true individual, the permanent individuality. The defect 
in plant life was that there was neither identity of in- 
dividuality in space nor identity in time. The growth of 
the plant destroyed the individuality of the seed with 
which we beg-an, so that it was evanescent in time; it 
served only as the starting point for new individualities, 
which likewise in turn served again the same purpose, 
and so its growth in space was a departure from itself as 
individual. But the animal is a preservation of indi- 
viduality as regards space. He returns into himself (i. e., 
makes his self-activity the object of his self-activity, or 
becomes self-object) in the form of feeling or sensiMlity; 
but as regards time, it is not so, feeling being limited to 
the present. Without a higher activity than feeling, there 
is no continuity of individuality in the animal any more 
than in the plant. Each new moment is a new beginning 
to a being that has feeling, but not memory. Thus the 
individuality of mere feeling, although a far more perfect 
realization of individuality than that found in plant life, 
is yet, after all, not a continuous individuality for itself, 
but only for the species. In spite of the ideal self-activity 
which appertains to feeling in sense-perception, only the 
species lives in the animal, and the individual dies, unless 
there be higher forms of activity. 



CHAPTEE XXiy. 

Recollection and Memory. 

§ 116. While mere sensation, as such, acts only 
in the presence of the object, reproducing (ideally, it 
is true) the external object, the faculty of recollection 



RECOLLECTION AND MEMORY. 171 

is a higher form of self -activity (or of reaction against 
surrounding conditions), because it can recall, at its 
own pleasure, the ideal object. Here is the begin- 
ning of emancipation from the limitations of time. 
The self-activity of representation can summon be- 
fore it the object that is no longer present to it. 
In this the souFs activity is a double one, for it can 
seize not only what is now and here immediately 
before it, but it can compare the present with the past 
object, and identify or distinguish between the two. 
Thus recollection or representation may become mem- 
ory. We may distinguish memory from mere recol- 
lection by letting it denote systematized recollection 
— recollection organized into wholes of experience — 
relative wholes, which are called events. Memory 
may thus be regarded as the grouping faculty by 
whose aid sense-perception becomes a perceiver of spe- 
cies as well as individuals. Memory contains the 
stores of experience by which the present object is 
explained and interpreted by the first figure of the syl- 
logism (Chapter X). It therefore uses general ideas 
or class ideas. It has already become conscious in its 
act of recollection that it can call up at will the past 
perceptions. It can summon before it the absent 
object and represent it. To represent is to create the 

object subjectively or mentally. The memory which 
14 



1Y2 PSYCHOLOGIC SYSTEM. 

collects and arranges the recollections thus deals with 
an activity which reproduces individual sense-im- 
pressions; it unites the object to the activity that 
produces it. This activity (memory), accordingly, 
generates the faculty of perceiving things and events 
as individuals of species, or members of classes. 
Human sense-perception is nearly always not simple 
sense-perception, but complex, being united to memory 
in such a way that the objects perceived are identified 
(second figure of syllogism. Chapter IX) or apper- 
ceived as specimens of classes. This makes possible 
language; for language can not be used unless the 
special object of the senses can be expressed in gen- 
eral terms already become familiar in remembered 
experience. 

As memory, taken in this sense of the organizer of 
experience into groups by subsuming all particulars under 
universal or general classes, the mind achieves a form of 
activity above that of sense-perception or mere recollec- 
tion. It must be noted carefully that mere recollection 
or representation, although it holds fast the perception 
in time (making it permanent), does not necessarily con- 
stitute an activity completely emancipated from time, nor, 
indeed, very far advanced toward it. It is only the begin- 
ning of such emancipation. For mere recollection stands 
in the presence of the imaged object of sense-perception; 
although the object is no longer present to the senses (or 
to mere feeling), yet the image is present to the represent- 
ative perception, and is just as much a particular here 
and now as the object of sense-perception. There inter- 



RECOLLECTION AND MEMORY. 1^3 

venes a new activity on the part of the soul before it 
arrives at memory. Recollection is not memory, but it 
is the activity which grows into it by the aid of the activ- 
ity of introspection and attention to it (i. e., to the activ- 
ity of recollection). 

§ 117. Tlie activity by which the mind ascends 
from sense-perception to memory is the activity of in- 
trospection, in this case an unconscious act of atten- 
tion to the process of recollection. Here we have the 
appearance of the will in intellectual activity, for this 
synthesis of the formative power (manifest in repre- 
sentation) with its results, recollected impressions, is 
the addition (to the products made) of the will that 
makes them. The act of systematizing the first 
stage of representation, which is recollection, there- 
fore introduces attention to subjective processes, which 
we call introspection. But introspection here is far 
below the threshold of consciousness, for it is the un- 
noticed activity which adds the representing process 
to its products. Attention is the control of percep- 
tion by means of the will, but it is unconscious 
will, if we may use the terms attention and will, 
at this point of progress. It directs, however, spon- 
taneously the attention to the process, and causes it to 
let go the particular images formed by representation. 
The senses shall no longer passively receive and report 
what is before them, but they shall choose some defi- 



174 PSYCHOLOGIC SYSTEM. 

nite point of observation, and neglect all tlie rest. 
Here, in the act of attention, we find the elementary 
form of abstraction^ and the greater attainment of 
freedom by the mind. The mind abstracts its view 
from the many things before it, and concentrates on 
one point. Educators have for many ages noted that 
the habit of attention is the first step in intellectual 
education. With it we have found the point of sepa- 
ration between the animal intellect and the human. 
Not attention simply — like that with which the cat 
watches by the hole of a mouse — but attention which 
arrives at results of abstraction, is the distinguishing 
characteristic of educative beings (see Chapter XXX). 
§ 118. Attention abstracts from some things be- 
fore it and concentrates on others. In the case here 
considered it abstracts from the sense-impressions and 
considers the mental activity of reproducing them by 
recollection. This is not a conscious act of abstrac- 
tion, but it is, all the same, an act of the will. When 
we reflect on it, we discover all the steps that are in- 
volved in it and make them conscious. We see that 
there was discrimination or analysis, and also syn- 
thesis. Through attention grows the capacity to dis- 
criminate between the special, particular object and 
its general type. This it does, as already described, 
by thinking together the reproductive imagination 



RECOLLECTION AND MEMORY. 1^5 

and its products, reaching the concept of particulars 
produced and held together in a generating cause (see 
Chapter Y — a concept not a mental picture, but a 
definition of the thing-producing energy). Gener- 
alization thus arises, but not what is usually called 
generalization — only a more elementary form of it — 
i. e., not generalization as it takes place on the stage 
of reflective thought, but as it takes place in the swift 
and unnoticed process of sense-perception and mem- 
ory. Memory, as the highest form of representation — 
distinguishing it from mere recollection, which repro- 
duces only what has been perceived — such memory 
deals with the general forms of objects, their continu- 
ity in time. Such activity of memory, therefore, does 
not reproduce mere images, but only the concepts or 
general ideas of things, and therefore it belongs to 
the stage of mind that uses language. 

§ 119. Mnemonics. — Whatever cultivation of 
memory tends to the arrest of the power of rational 
thinking is to be by all means avoided. It seems, 
therefore, that most of the schemes of mnemonics 
which are advocated are to be condemned without 
reservation. Those which proceed upon the prin- 
ciple that memory is to be cultivated by association, 
and that all kinds of association are equally good, 
should fall under the ban. For in order to find in- 



176 PSYCHOLOGIC SYSTEM. 

• 

teresting associations they suggest the search for ab- 
surd and ridiculous relations. The philosopher Locke 
has well said that ^' the connection in our minds of 
ideas, in themselves loose and independent of one 
another, has such an influence and is of so great force 
to set us wrong in our actions, as well moral and natu- 
ral, passions, reasonings, and notions themselves, that 
perhaps there is not any one thing that deserves more 
to be looked after." In all cases the mind should seek 
essential relations, and particularly the relation of 
cause and effect and that of individual and species. 
^Necessary connection enables the mind to make de- 
ductions, and thus it acquires a sort of generative 
memory, so to speak — a memory which can deduce 
or develop from given data the other data that stand 
in relation to it. It is true that this is difficult with 
regard to certain classes of memory, as, for instance, 
the memory of proper names, or the memory of dates, 
or memory of words in general. 

The memory of dates, names, or words in g-eneral can 
and should be cultivated to some extent without attempt- 
ing- association of any kind except that of sequence. The 
committing to memory of fine passages from poets and 
literary prose writers certainly cultivates a memory for 
words without detriment to thought. A memorized list 
of proper names, names of persons of historic note or char- 
acters in the great literary works of art, such as the plays 
of Shakespeare, the Iliad and Odyssey — the memorizing 



RECOLLECTION AND MEMORY. 177 

of these names will serve the double purpose of being 
at once very useful and a means of arousing into activity 
the faculty of remembering proper names — a faculty that 
grovs^s torpid quite early in persons engaged in science, 
literature, and philosophy. Also the memorizing of 
paradigms in the study of language has the effect to cul- 
tivate this memory of words and isolated items. If the 
mind thinks at all in the process of memorizing these 
lists of proper names and the important dates of history 
or the paradigms of grammar, it considers the deeds and 
characters of the persons named, or the events associated 
with the dates, or the logical relation of the inflections 
to the verbs and nouns inflected. And such kind of think- 
ing as this is positive and valuable. But in case of asso- 
ciating in accordance wdth certain mnemonic rules the 
names, dates, and inflections with arbitrary and fanciful 
suggestions, the thinking power is set moving on wrong 
lines. — If the discovery of Broca, generally recognised as 
the beginning of physiological psychology on the new 
basis, is to be understood in the sense that a certain con- 
volution near the base of the brain is used by the mind 
in recalling words and associating them w^ith ideas, it 
would seem that a cultivation of the memory of words 
should be undertaken in later life by all people who 
have an incipient tendency to aphasia. If a person finds 
himself forgetful of names, it is a health-giving process 
to take a certain portion of time in committing to memory 
words. If this is done by committing to memory new 
masterpieces of poetry and prose, or in committing to 
memory the words of a new language, there is profit or 
gain to the thinking powers as well as to the memory. 
Doubtless the cultivation of verbal memory, building up 
as it does a certain convolution in the brain, has a tend- 
ency to prevent atrophy in that organ. This contains 
a hint in the direction of keeping up in the later part 
of life the faculties which are usually so active in youth. 
The tendency is to neglect childish faculties and allow 
them to become torpid. But if this is liable to weaken 
certain portions of the brain in such a way as to in- 



178 PSYCHOLOGIC SYSTEM. 

duce hsemorrhag-e, ending in softening" of the brain, cer- 
tainly the memory should be cultivated if only for the 
health of the brain, and the memory for mechanical items 
and details should be cultivated on grounds of health as 
well as on grounds of culture. The extreme advocates of 
the rational method of teaching are perhaps wrong in 
repudiating entirely all mechanical memory of dates and 
names or items. Certainly they are right in opposing the 
extremes of the old pedagogy, which obliged the pupils 
to memorize page after page the contents of a grammar 
" verbatim et literatim et punctuatim " (as, for instance, 
the graduates of the Boston Latin School tell us, was the 
custom early in this century). But is there not a middle 
ground? Is there not a minimum list of details of dates 
and names which must and should be memorized both on 
account of the health of the nervous system and on 
account of the intrinsic usefulness of the data themselves? 
And must not the person in later life continue to exercise 
these classes of memory which deal with details for the 
sake of physical health? This is a question for the edu- 
cational pathologist. 



§ 120. We have seen in the preceding sections 
that in the order of the development of the so-called 
" faculties " of the mind sense-perception is the low- 
est, because the mind is relatively passive in its exer- 
cise. We behold or contemplate an object because it 
is presented to our senses. Remove the object, and 
our sense-perception ceases. We perceive only what 
is present, here and now. This is its limitation: it 
is dependent on the object. But with the memory 
we are not thus limited by what is external. We can 
call up at will our past perceptions when the objects 



RECOLLECTION AND MEMORY. 1Y9 

are no longer present. In this we realize for the first 
time our power over time and space. We can create 
for ourselves objects which no longer exist. Memory 
to some degree makes the past now, and the far-off 
here. 

§ 121. Memory is a sort of double self -activity as 
compared with sense-perception. In our third chapter 
we have stated that even sense-perception proves its 
right to a higher place than plant life or mere assimi- 
lation by the fact that the percipient reproduces within 
itself the form of the object, and by this act is able to 
perceive. Feeling and perception are forms of repro- 
duction, while nutrition or assimilation is merely a 
destructive act which imposes its own form in place of 
another on the food consumed. But memory is an 
explicit reproduction of the object once perceived, 
and its freedom is clearly seen. We may say that 
perception is unconscious reproduction of the form 
of the object, while memory is the conscious repro- 
duction of it. It has been pointed out that the repro- 
duction called perception takes place only in the pres- 
ence of the object, while memory is entirely inde- 
pendent of the object. 

§ 122. Sense-perception if overcultivated can 
therefore prove detrimental to the development of 
the higher faculty, memory. The habit of occupy- 



180 PSYCHOLOGIC SYSTEM. 

ing tlie mind only on what is present before the senses 
arrests the growth of memory. But the more consid- 
erate power of perception which employs the memory 
to re-enforce sense-perception is useful to both alike. 
In Chapter X we have indicated the form under which 
this takes place. In the first figure of the syllogism 
we bring all that we have already learned to re-enforce 
our perception by testing it and setting it to verify 
or refute pre^dous experience (see above, § 116). 

The Pestalozzians who speak so often of the importance 
of cultivating sense-perception in the school do not seem 
to have ever considered the relation of perception to mem- 
ory, for they make no mention of this radical difference of 
activity, nor do they proceed to show^ how^ the higher 
faculty may be made to assist the lower. A similar mis- 
take is made by those writers on psychology who do not 
discriminate the higher from the lower faculties, but treat 
them all alike. They hold that the higher are built up 
out of the low^er, as though perceptions would grow into 
thoughts when they have become sufficiently numerous. 
They have no insight into the primary fact of psychology 
— namely, that every higher faculty is an activity which 
is negative to the lower activities, although it preserves 
in a transfigured shape what was valid in the lower. 

§ 123. ^^ Memory is indispensable in all intellec- 
tual processes, and therefore must be trained and de- 
veloped. " Yes, but it is liable to prove destructive to 
the other faculties . (so called) and supplant them ; 
hence it must be restrained within its proper limits, 
made auxiliary to the other faculties, and not allowed 



RECOLLECTION AND MEMORY. 181 

to assume the chief role. It is a matter of everyday 
comment that much memorizing deadens the power 
of thought, verbal or statistical memory being ^' me- 
chanical.'' But it is also equally true that memory 
may paralyze the powers of sense-perception, imagi- 
nation, and will. With an overactive memory we 
suppose ourselves to see in an object what we remem- 
ber to have seen in it before, and any new features 
escape our superficial perception. This is true, too, 
in the case of imagination, a power which ought to 
be productive as w^ell as reproductive, and by which 
we ought to envisage not only real objects but pos- 
sible ones, and thereby sharpen our powers of inven- 
tion and discovery. Even the imagination may be 
dulled by a too active memory, and degenerate into 
a mirror of the past. The productive imagination 
should belong not only to poets and artists, but to 
all men, as a faculty of discovering ideals and emanci- 
pating us from the imperfect reality. It should give 
us a tendency to invention and to aspiration. But, 
under the weight of prescribed forms and the sway 
of memory, a civilization crushes out self -activity on 
the part of individuals and imposes the role of ex- 
ternal authority upon all. Thus the will of the indi- 
vidual loses freedom, and settles down into passive 
obedience to custom and prescription. 



182 PSYCHOLOGIC SYSTEM. 

The important question to determine is the proper 
amount of memory-cultivation. The Chinese education 
tills the memory with maxims of Confucius and Mencius, 
and the individual follows these because there is little 
else in his mind: their lines are graven so deep that noth- 
ing" else seems important. The antidote for this baneful 
effect of memory is to be sought in a method of training 
that associates effects with causes, and individuals with 
species; that associates one idea with another through 
its essential relations, and not by its accidental properties. 
One must put thought into the act of memory. But the 
special kind of memory that is weak should be cultivated 
by itself and not attached to some other form of memory. 
The simile of a magnet is to the point here. Load it 
to-day with iron filings, and to-morrow it will support a 
few more. The memory, if only strong enough to retain 
a single item with effort, will grow stronger by the effort, 
and will soon retain two items, and finally others in vast 
numbers and without effort. 



§ 124. It is a reasonable thing to correct special 
defects in the lower orders of memory when they 
become matters of serious embarrassment. Those spe- 
cial powers of memory should in that case be strength- 
ened. It is a perception of this necessity that has led 
to systems of mnemonics. The common device of 
such systems has been association of the items of one 
province of memory with those of another. The items 
easily forgotten are fastened, so to speak, to items 
easily remembered — names or dates, for example, to 
places or events. As has been shown above, it often 
happens that the items of one order are not related to 



RECOLLECTION AND MEMORY. 183 

tlie other order by the principle of causahty or ge- 
netic development, and it results that the mnemonic 
association by which memory of a particular kind is 
to be strengthened is merely an accidental relation 
of the items associated. Contiguity of space or acci- 
dental resemblance in sound is to assist us to remem- 
ber. By mnemonics we cultivate a habit of con- 
sciously seeking such accidental relations, and we 
accordingly injure our power of logical thought by 
neglecting essential for unessential relations. 

In § 119 we have already pointed out the dangers inci- 
dent to the use of mnemonic systems. The following- 
example will illustrate further this wrong- method : 
Greg-or von Feinaigle's New Art of Memory (London, 
1812) says * that " the recollection of ideas is assisted by 
associating- some idea of relation between them; and as 
we find by experience that whatever is ludicrous is cal- 
culated to make a strong- impression upon the mind, the 
more ridiculous the association is the better." Think of 
an effort of the mind to discover absurd and ridiculous 
relations between ideas with a view to remember them! 
That would be to cultivate memory at the expense of sane, 
rational thoug-ht. The true method of cultivating and 
streng-thening a defective memory is to practise it on the 
kind of items that it easily forgets. As already suggested, 
a few such items must be memorized and reviewed daily, 
adding a small increment to the list as soon as it has 
become perfectly mastered. A list with fifty items thus 
memorized will suffice to develop a habit of attention to 
such items and a power of recalling them which will grow^ 
steadily with such exercise as circumstances bring occa- 

* Quoted by David Kay, Memory, p. 281. 



184 PSYCHOLOGIC SYSTEM. 

sion for. By this method we avoid fantastic associations 
and correct the weak faculty itself, instead of fastening- 
its work on another faculty. Pursuing- the sugg-estions 
made above (§§ 119, 123), let the exercise be a list of 
dates valuable to retain for themselves, such, for example, 
as the dates of accession of the English kings; also of 
the Roman emperors; the founding and important events 
of the g-reat cities of the world. Or, if it is names that one 
wishes to remember, select a list of important persons 
that furnish centres of historical information; such, for 
example, as the names of the Roman emperors, the French 
kings, the heroes of Plutarch's histories; or of typical 
personalities, such as the characters in Shakespeare's 
dramas or in Homer's Iliad — items of world-historical im- 
portance, A list of one hundred proper names learned in 
their order, as king-s of France and of England, and the 
emperors of Rome, will furnish central nuclei to historic 
material, and the memorizing of such a list, or, indeed, a 
list half as large, will so discipline the memory for names 
as to permanently remove all embarrassment from this 
source. It is not the length of the list, so much as the 
thoroughness with which it is learned, that develops the 
memory. It is not well to go on beyond a hundred items, 
for the reason that such mechanical memory should not be 
made too strong. Idiots and semi-idiots may show pro- 
digious powers of remembering numbers, and very feeble 
intellects may be exceptionally apt in remembering names 
and other words. Therefore, while there should be some 
special Waining to strengthen varieties of mechanical 
memory that have become too weak for the service re- 
quired of them, thej^ should not be overcultivated. Repeti- 
tion and careful attention should be relied upon more than 
association in the cultivation of the mechanical varieties 
of memory, for the reason that association, though more 
showy and brilliant in its effects than repetition and at- 
tention, is not so much a correction of the special province 
of defective memory as a substitution of another province 
of memory for the defective one. Memory of places, for 
example, is substituted vicariously for memory of numbers 



RECOLLECTION AND MEMORY. 185 

or names. Physiological psycliolog-y has not thus far dis- 
covered much that is of practical value in the educational 
treatment of memory. Many psychical activities, it is 
true, have been located or partially located in the brain 
and nervous system, and diseases of the memory may with 
some deg-ree of certainty be connected with accompany- 
ing* lesions in the brain. But whether these lesions are 
causes or effects, or both, we are not able to cure an ordi- 
nary case of failing" memory except by pure psychological 
means — ^namely, by attention, mental association, and 
repetition — doubtless affecting the brain thereby, but 
through free acts of the will. We can affect the brain 
through the effort of the will on the memory, but we can 
not as yet develop the memory through body-culture. 

§ 125. Memory is not a simple homogeneous fac- 
ulty or activity of the soul. It is an entire series 
of activities rising in a scale from the mere represen- 
tation in the form of a picture of what has been seen 
up to a sort of creative memory which, recollecting 
the law or principle, deduces the picture or thought 
of the object with greater accuracy than the merely 
mechanical memory retains it. Thus there is memory 
of shapes, colours, places, times, and sense-impres- 
sions; then there is memory of numbers, and this is 
not a memory of sense-impressions, but of the mental 
acts of abstracting the quantity; then there is memory 
of causal action, and this is a very high order of mem- 
ory. When we remember causal action, we possess 
a sort of rule or law by which we may create the 
results or effects, and do not need to learn them by 



186 PSYCHOLOGIC SYSTEM. 

the use of mechanical memory. The cultivation of 
one species of memory may assist or it may hinder 
another kind of memory, according as the mental 
activity by which the attention is fixed on one subject 
aids or hinders the mental activity of the other kind 
of memory. 

The cases are rare in which a person has a weak 
memory in all directions. In considering- the question of 
improving- the memory, therefore, the individual must 
ask in what respect he is defective; is it dates, or names, 
or something else that he fails to remember? Moreover, 
it is necessary to ask whether it is important to remember 
those items that he forgets so easily — whether, in short, 
it is worth while to acquire a habit of remembering them. 
For instance, as children we remembered village gossip, 
personal remarks, actions, or things and events that are 
so trivial that we do not permit ourselves now to inter- 
est ourselves in them or recall them. Do we not find, in 
fact, our memories of those insipid things and events of 
childhood still too vivid? We are apt to speak of children, 
for this very reason, as having strong memories. But 
would we willingly have again our childish memories? 
Would it content us to notice trivial circumstances and 
overlook essential matters? If so, it is easy to gratify 
our desire by cultivating the childish form of memory. 
We may give our attention to the accidental features of 
an event, to the details of foolish gossip, and neglect the 
main issues and the causal processes. It will naturally 
result, then, that we shall remember as children remem- 
ber, with the difference that we shall find ourselves able 
to do a far greater amount of superficial observation 
and recollection than children can do. 

§ 126. Attention is regarded as the condition of 
memory, when we explain the loss of memory by the 



RECOLLECTION AND MEMORY. 187 

lack of attention to the event, or prescribe a habit 
of attention as the remedy for loss of memory. But 
such a habit does not strengthen general memory; 
it weakens it rather. For it implies a selection of a 
small province of the field before us, and a neglect 
of the rest; hence the training of attention implies 
also a cultivation of neglect. As we grow mature 
in our intellectual power we increase in our ability 
to seize the objects of our choice and to pass over 
without notice all others. The person without a 
well-developed power of attention is in a state of pas- 
sivity toward invading external influences. He is 
a prey to impressions that come from his environ- 
ment. Most of these '^ early impressions " of which 
we hear so much were received at a time when trivial 
things could seize upon us and absorb our powers of 
observation to the neglect of more essential things. 
Such passive impressibility, the condition of the child- 
ish memory, it is the object of education to eradicate. 
The pupil must learn to exclude and ignore the many 
things before him, and to concentrate all his powers 
of mind on the one chosen subject. 

It follows that the discipline of attention makes the 
memory uneven or unequal. The study of relations weak- 
ens our memory of mere isolated data. The study of 
general ideas causes us to be careless in regard to spe- 
cific details that naturally follow as effects. .Our insig-ht 
15 



188 PSYCHOLOGIC SYSTEM. 

into laws weakens our hold of special instances. Know- 
ing- the law of eclipses, we can calculate all past and all 
future instances, and we do not care to burden our mem- 
ory with the historical record of eclipses. Our attention 
to the meaning" of a word weakens our memory of its 
sound; attention to a person's character makes us less 
careful to remember his costume. While, therefore, it is 
a correct educational maxim that the memory must be 
trained on essential relations and causal processes, so as 
to strengthen the power of thought at the same time, yet 
there may be excess even in this direction. We find, ac- 
cordingly, people whose memory of dates is so defective 
as to cause much waste of power; other persons are so 
forgetful of names as to be under constant embarrassment 
in conversation or in writing. 

§ 127. Memory is therefore not a faculty of the 
soul which is to be desired on all accounts and culti- 
vated always with assiduity. With the growth of 
culture of the higher powers it will occupy less and 
less place compared with the whole mind. 

Aristotle's profound insight into the nature of the 
soul and its powers deserves more study. In his De Anima 
that philosopher places memory with the fantasy, the 
activity of sense-perception, and the discursive intellect, 
as together constituting the " passive reason " (NoCs vadrjTi- 
k6s). He considers this part of the soul perishable or 
moribund. This thought of the perishability of such 
faculties in the onward career of the soul has quite an- 
other and deeper meaning than that usually attributed to 
it. Memory and sense-perception become less and less 
prominent factors in the human mind, and in some de- 
partments they already occupy a very inferior position. 
In arithmetic and geometry, for example, we deduce the 
special instance rather than observe it and memorize it. 
In each of the natural sciences an epoch of observation 



RECOLLECTION AND MEMOitY. 189 

closes with an exhaustive inventory of its details, and there 
follows an epoch in which the whole compass of details 
is organized into a system by means of a discovery of the 
laws and modes of action of the organic energy that pro- 
duces the facts. Each fact is then seen in the perspective 
of its history, or of its genesis, and thus thoroughly ex- 
plained; but with such explanation the scaffolding of 
original facts that were inventoried and systematized falls 
away, and all observation of new facts in the province be- 
comes a mere verification of the known mode of action 
of the energy. Agassiz, having learned the principles of 
biological structure, recognises a new fish from one of its 
scales, and can tell with confidence its structure and con- 
ditions of living. It is not a matter of memory, but of 
direct insight. So Cuvier can see the whole animal in one 
of its bones, and Lyell see in each pebble its entire his- 
tory. Goethe's allegorical Homunculus * symbolizes this 
new achievement in the scientific mind. The little living 
being confined in a bottle figures the final career of in- 
duction which has arrived at insight or intuition. Having 
exhaustively surveyed its limited field, each special sci- 
ence seizes upon the organizing principle and can predict 
facts or recognise and explain them at sight. When we 
can see each immediate fact in the perspective of its gene- 
sis or history, we have no use for memory which pre- 
serves for us facts and events isolated from their pro- 
ducing and deducing causes. Memory is moribund, and 
in province after province it is losing its importance. A 
fact-producing principle is seized and the facts are kept 
no longer in vast storehouses, for they can be deduced 
when wanted, or, if encountered in our experience, they 
can be explained and dismissed. We look beyond them 
to their causes, and let sense-perception and memory of 
such facts both drop. The relative amount of activity of 

* See the second part of Faust. Homunculus stands 
for Winckelmann, who attained such knowledge of Greek 
art that he could give the rules that would enable one to 
recognise the god or goddess by a small part of the face. 



190 PSYCHOLOGIC SYSTEM. 

sense-perception, of memory, and of mere reflection on 
accidental relations (vovs iraO-nTiKSs) continually diminishes, 
and the thinking on principles, causes, and organic pro- 
cesses (_vovs Troir]TiK6s) increases. 



CHAPTEK XXY. 

From Perception to Conception: each Ohject seen in 
its Class, 

§ 128. We have already seen (§§ 116 and 117) 
how the memory differs from recollection by making 
its survey include not only the particulars recalled 
by recollection, but also the entire process of recol- 
lection itself as a creative or producing unity of the 
mind. This phase of memory makes it a faculty that 
adds the general, the class, or species to the individual, 
and thus elevates perception to conception, and makes 
language possible. 

(a) Nutrition implies foreign objects on which to exer- 
cise its energy. It manifests itself as a destruction of its 
environment and the extension of its power by conquest. 
If it could conquer all its environment it would become 
a totality; but then its activity would cease for want 
of food. The old Norse mythology conceived the tree 
Yggdrasil — the world-tree which had digested its environ- 
ment in this way. — (&) Sense-perception, on the other 
hand, implies impressions from foreign objects as the 
occasion of its activity of ideal reproduction. It can not 



FHOM PERCEPTION TO CONCEPTION. 191 

perceive without objects; hence its energy is always con- 
ditioned by energies independent of it. (c) Eepresenta- 
tion is reproduction without the presence of the sense- 
object; recollection and memory are forms of this. In 
the form of recollection the individual energy reproduces 
the activity of a past perception. The impression on the 
sense-organ is absent, and the freedom of the individual 
is manifested in this reproduction without the occasion 
which is furnished by the impression on the organism 
from without. The freedom to reproduce the image of an 
object that has been once perceived leads by easy steps 
to the perception of general notions; for, when the mind 
notices its mode of activity by which the former percep- 
tion is reproduced or represented, it perceives, of course, 
its power of repeating the process, and notes that the same 
energy can produce an indefinite series of different images 
resembling one another. It is by this action of repre- 
sent^ion that the idea of the universal arises. It is a re- 
flection on *the conditions of recalling a former percep- 
tion. The energy that can produce within itself the con- 
ditions of a former perception at pleasure, without the 
presence of the original object of perception, is an en- 
ergy that is generic — that is, an energy that can produce 
the particular and repeat it to any extent. The universal 
or generic power can produce a class. 

§ 129. With this consciousness of a generic en- 
ergy manifested in the power of representation arises 
the recognition of generic energy manifested in the 
external world as the producer of the particular ob- 
jects perceived, and each object is seen in its produc- 
ing energy as one of an indefinite number produced 
by the continued existence of that energy. The 
consciousness of freedom of the Ego in this re- 
stricted province of representing or recalling former 



192 PSYCHOLOGIC SYSTEM. 

sense-perceptions lies thus at the basis of the per- 
ception of objects as specimens of classes; hence repre- 
sentation or recollection, which is of special and indi- 
vidual objects, leads to the act of reflection by which 
the self as representing power is perceived, and with 
it the perception of the necessary generic character 
of the energy at the foundation of every impression 
upon our senses or at the foundation of every object 
perceived. 

§ 130. At this point the activity of perception 
becomes Conception, or the perception of the gen- 
eral in the particular. The " this oak " is perceived 
as ^^ an oak,'' or a specimen of the class oak. The 
class oak is conceived as an indefinite number of in- 
dividual oaks, all produced by an energy which mani- 
fests itself in an organic process of assimilation and 
elimination, in which appear the stadia of acorn, 
sapling, tree, and crop o| acorns — a continuous circle 
of reproduction of the species oak, a transformation 
of the one into the many — the one acorn becoming 
a crop of acorns, and then a forest of oaks. It is the 
energy, of course, that is the universal. It is not 
a conscious thought in the sense of being a special 
or abstract object of consciousness. But it is a part 
of the unity of the conceived object, and we may find 
it by analysis. 



• FROM PERCEPTION TO CONCEPTION. I93 

§ 131. We have already noted at several points 
in our progress the mistake of the psychological the- 
ory which thinks that universal terms are derived 
from particulars by abstraction. In Chapter XI it 
has been shown that the third figure of the syllogism 
discriminates subclasses, dividing the vague and gen- 
eral class which experience brings with it by a more 
minute observation. The fixing of the first object 
that the mind perceives is, of course, very inadequate. 
The object is empty and vague because the infant has 
no previous experience with which to apperceive or 
interpret the first sense-impressions of his new life. 
Differences of light and shade, of agreeable and dis- 
agreeable taste, of heat and cold, of pleasant and un- 
pleasant movements, of soft and loud tones and noises, 
successively impress his senses, and he gradually parts 
his general or common sense into special senses, and 
after a time locates them in parts of his body and 
comes to know his body from its environment. His 
first general categories are existence and non-exist- 
ence, and are divided into subcategories, something 
and something else, and change. This is on the sur- 
face of his intellect; but deep down are the vital in- 
stincts which are as unconscious as those of the plant. 
As consciousness awakes, it finds the self engaged 
in processes of spontaneous action, which are not 



194: PSYCHOLOGIC SYSTEM. 

guided bj intellect or will. The plant life, tlie life 
of nutrition, is the basis of the animal life of feeling 
and instinct which has arisen. The infant gradually 
conquers this first life by a higher form of self -activ- 
ity — higher because more nearly conscious and indi- 
vidual. He becomes conscious of his feelings, and 
gradually discriminates the products of his five senses, 
and later on can distinguish his body from the en- 
vironment, and still later divides the latter into things 
and self-moving beings, persons, animals, plants, and 
inanimate beings. It is a descent from vague gen- 
eral categories to more specific ones by division, his 
analysis taking the form of the third figure. At first, 
one category does for the whole of his experience — 
is and is not. 

§ 132. Concepts do not arise, however, until the 
infant mind has attained the power of comparing its 
recollection with the reality, and has transferred its 
thought of itself as maker of particular representa- 
tions to the object as a particular example of a hidden 
producing generic cause. Each thing is then seen 
as one specimen out of an infinite number of possible 
specimens produced by the objective cause. Lan- 
guage becomes possible only on this condition. The 
object must be dislodged from its solidarity with 'Na- 
ture and made to stand out as a product distinguish- 



FROM PERCEPTION TO CONCEPTION. I95 

able from its causal genesis. Everything has a causal 
genesis, it will be admitted. This act of separation 
individualizes or personifies in the infant mind, and 
he forms a concept every time he has a percept, and 
unites them by the second figure of the syllogism, 
identifying the particular with a class by some mark 
of class production. A dog is thus identified as a 
cat from its resemblance to the already familiar ani- 
mal; or, vice versa, if the dog is a familiar object, 
the new object, cat, is identified with dog. Ob- 
jects are identified in a class by the concept, which 
is an idea below the threshold of consciousness 
equivalent to the-cause-that-produces-this-Jcind-of-ap- 
pearances. 

" My little grandchild Florence was held in my arms 
asleep. A distant locomotive sounded its whistle like a 
trumpet as it approached the town. She aroused herself, 
and said softly, ' Tow ' (for cow). She had come from 
a ranch in the distant West and was familiar with the 
lowing of cows. Hence she interpreted the particular 
of sense — the sound which came to her ear — as produced 
by a cow." 

§ 133. The human characteristic is the knowing 
by universals. Man recognises or sees all objects as 
specimens of classes. He sees the particular in the 
universal. Hence his act of cognition is more com- 
plex than that of mere sense-perception, which he 
shares with the animal. ISTote that the sense-perception 



196 PSYCHOLOGIC SYSTEM. 

which sees classes as the background on which the 
particular is imaged implies self-consciousness. The 
soul has perceived itself as a free producing cause in 
the act of recollection^ and it transfers unconsciously 
this idea of itself to the object, and now perceives with 
concepts. 

§ 134. The rise of self -consciousness, or the per- 
ception of self-activity, and the perception of the 
general object in the external world, are thus con- 
temporaneous. With the perception of the general 
energy the psychological activity has outgrown 
represe7itation and become conception. With concep- 
tion the energy or soul begins to be an individuality 
for itself — a conscious individuality. It recognises 
itself as a free energy. The stage of mere perception 
does not recognise itself, but merely sees its own en- 
ergy as the objective energy, because its acts are en- 
tirely occasioned by the external object. In the recog- 
nition of the object as an individual of a class the soul 
recognises its own freedom and independent activ- 
ity. Recollection (Erinnerung) relates to individ- 
uals, recalling the special presentation or impression, 
and representing the object as it was before per- 
ceived. Memory (like the German word Geddchtniss) 
may be distinguished as the activity which repro- 
duces the object as one of a class, and therefore as the 



FROM PERCEPTION TO CONCEPTION. I97 

form of representation that perceives nniversals. 
With memory arises language. 

§ 135. Imagination and fancy, or fantasy, are 
like recollection, free in the sense that they depend 
on the self. But they are freer than recollection, 
because they are not tethered to real events or things 
that belong to a past experience. They determine 
forms, shapes, situations, and actions entirely ideal, 
and without reference to actual existences, except in 
so far as the general laws of space and time, which 
logically condition fancies, as well as existences, de- 
mand. The freedom of imagination is therefore 
seemingly more perfect than that of recollection, or 
even memory. It is, however, only the abstract free- 
dom as compared with the true freedom of ethical 
thought and action, as we shall see later on. 



198 PSYCHOLOGIC SYSTEM. 



CHAPTEK XXYI. 

Language as the Distinguishing Characteristic of the 
Human Being. 

§ 136. Language fixes the knowledge of objects 
in universals. Each word represents an indefinite 
number of particular objects, actions, or relations. 
The word oak stands for all oaks — present, past, or 
future. 1^0 being can use language, much less create 
language, unless it has learned to conceive as well 
as perceive — learned to see all objects as individuals 
belonging to classes, and incidentally recognised its 
own individuality. All human beings possess lan- 
guage. Even deaf and dumb human beings invent 
and use gestures with as definite meaning as words, 
each gesture denoting a class with a possible infinite 
number of special applications. 

Lang-uage is the means of disting-uishing between the 
brute and the human — between the animal soul, which 
has continuity only in the species (which pervades its 
being- in the form of instinct), and the human soul, which 
is immortal, and possessed of a capacity to be educated. 
There is no lang"uage until the mind can perceive general 
types of existence; mere proper names or mere exclama- 
tions or cries do not constitute language. All words that 
belong to language are significative — they " express " or 
" mean " something; hence they are conventional symbols, 
and not mere individual designations. Language arises 



LANGUAGE. 199 

only through common consent, and is not an invention of 
one individual. It is a product of individuals acting to- 
g-ether as a community, and hence its use implies the ascent 
of the individual into the species. By this expression is 
meant that the individual in his particularity becomes con- 
scious of his ego as producing cause — as self-active — hence 
the individual recognises himself as a universal or species, 
in recognising himself as an independent, original cause 
of his acts and deeds, his thoughts, his feelings; for his 
feelings are his reactions against alien being. He is the 
common term to all his variety, and hence in this sense 
species as v^ell as individual. Unless an individual could 
ascend into the species, he could not understand lan- 
guage. To know words and their meaning is an activity 
of divine significance; it denotes the formation of uni- 
versals in the mind — the ascent above the here and now 
of the senses, and above the representation of mere images, 
to the activity which grasps together the general concep- 
tion of objects, and thus reaches beyond what is transient 
and variable. Doubtless the nobler species of animals pos- 
sess not only sense-perception, but a considerable degree 
of the power of representation. They are not only able 
to recollect, but to imagine or fancy to some extent, as 
is evidenced by their dreams. But that animals do not 
generalize sufficiently to form for themselves a new ob- 
jective world of types and general concepts, we have a 
sufficient evidence in the fact that they do not use words, 
or invent conventional symbols. With the activity of the 
symbol-making form of representation, which we have 
named Memory, and whose evidence is the invention and 
use of language, the true form of individuality is attained, 
and each individual human being, as mind, may be said 
to be the entire species. Inasmuch as he can form uni- 
versals in his mind, he can realize the most abstract 
thought, and he is conscious. Consciousness begins when 
one can seize the pure universal in the presence of im- 
mediate objects here and now. The sense-perception of 
the mere animal, therefore, differs from that of the human 
being in this: The human being knows himself as sub- 



200 PSYCHOLOGIC SYSTEM. 

ject that sees the object, while the animal sees the object, 
but does not separate himself, as universal, from the spe- 
cial act of seeing. To know that I am I is to know the eg-o, 
the most general of objects, and to carry out abstraction to 
its very last degree, for what is of a higher degree of gen- 
erality than the ego as determiner of itself, as subject 
but not yet as object? It is the power to become any or 
all thoughts, feelings, and volitions, but as subject it is 
not any one of these as yet. And yet this is what all 
human beings know, young or old, savage or civilized. The 
savage invents and uses language — an act of the species, 
but which the species can not do, without the participation 
of the individual. It should be carefully noted that this 
activity of generalization which produces language, and 
distinguishes the human from the brute, is not the gen- 
eralization of the activity of thought, so called. It is the 
preparation for thought. These general types of things 
are the things which thought deals with. Thought does 
not deal with mere immediate objects of the senses; it 
deals rather with the objects which are indicated by 
words — i. e., general objects. Some writers would have us 
suppose that we do not arrive at general notions except 
by the process of classification and abstraction, in the 
mechanical manner that they lay down for this purpose. 
The fact is, that the mind has arrived at these general 
ideas in the process of learning language. In infancy, 
most children have learned such words as is, existence, 
being, nothing, motion, cause, change, I, you, he, etc. They 
do not contain all the experience that they will contain 
late in life, but they are already used as general terms. 
At the very beginning the child uses the third figure of 
the syllogism in each discrimination of a difference, and 
makes a definition of the new type which will include 
an infinite number of examples if they can be furnished. 
The definition will also do equally well for the one speci- 
men under observation, if there are no more. 

§ 137. Language is therefore the sign by which 
we can recognise the arrival of the soul at this stage 



LANGUAGE. 201 

of development on the way to complete self-activity. 
Hence language is tlie evidence of immortal indi- 
viduality. In order to use language, it must be able 
not only to act for itself, but to act wholly upon itself. 
It must not only perceive things by the senses, but 
accompany its perceiving by an inner perception of the 
act of perceiving (and thus be its own environment). 
This perception of the act and process of perceiving 
is, as has been shown, the recognition of classes, spe- 
cies, and genera — the universal processes underlying 
the existence of the particular. 

§ 138. Language in this sense involves conven- 
tional signs, and hence, as has been remarked above, 
is not an immediate expression of feeling, like the cries 
of animals. The immediate expression of feeling 
(which is only a reaction) does not become language, 
even when it accompanies recollection or free repro- 
duction — nor until it accompanies memory and con- 
ception or the seeing of the particular in the gen- 
eral. When it can be shown that a species of animals 
use conventional signs in communication one with 
another, we shall be able to infer their immortality, 
because we shall have evidence of their freedom from 
sense-perception and environment sufficient to create 
for themselves their own occasion for activity. They 
would then be shown to react not merely against their 



202 PSYCHOLOGIC SYSTEM. 

environment, but against their own action; hence 
they would involve both action and reaction, self and 
environment within each self. They would in that 
case have selves, and their selves exist for themselves, 
and hence they would have self-identity. 

Take away self-identity, and still there may be per- 
sistence of self -activity; but it is only g-eneric — that of the 
species and not of the individual. The species lives, the 
individual dies in such cases. If the same individual lived 
on in another life, it v^^ould only be unconscious trans- 
migration. The animal soul could not remember its former 
life, because it did not knoM^ itself in the form of moral 
feeling". It did not reach a sense of moral responsibility, 
and hence did not feel itself as an independent cause, 
originating- chang-es in the v^orld. 

§ 139. These distinctions of self -activity or of 
spontaneous energy which have been pointed out in 
the stages of nutrition, feeling, sense-perception, and 
recollection are often overlooked, or are accounted 
as the direct product of the environment, and not 
admitted as the reactions of individual energy. The 
science that ignores the manifestation of energy in 
the reaction of the individual assumes that all the 
energy is in the environment, although the obvious 
fact is that there is energy on each side — on that of 
the individual and on that of the environment. 

§ 140. In these lower stages of the activity of 
individual energy we have individuality that can not 



LANGUAGE. 203 

recognise itself because it can not recognise the uni- 
versal, and therefore can not conceive of pure causal 
activity, but identifies it with special manifestation. 
Hence (as implied in § 137) the permanence of such 
individuality would not be the continuance of indi- 
viduality in the sense of immortality any more than 
a perpetual sleep would continue it. 

Even memory and the phenomena of language are 
not recognised by psychologists generally as being mani- 
festations of the self-conscious individuality. Psychology, 
however, readily recognises the advent of universal ideas 
In the activity of reflection, and notes the self-activity 
of mind in forming such ideas and thinking with them. 
We have already noticed more than once that it is usual 
to account for the production of these universal ideas 
by supposing that the mind first collects many individ- 
uals and then abstracts so as to omit the differences and 
preserve the likeness or resemblance, and thus form the 
conception of class. It therefore makes reflection re- 
sponsible not only for the recognition of the universal, 
but for its creation. But the act of reflection only dis- 
covers what had already been elaborated in the lower 
faculty of the mind. Besides, the mind does not first seize 
differences; it does not begin with the particular in all 
its particularity, but only with the identity, the likeness 
of each to everything else, and it admits differences only 
as they are forced on it; it descends from vague and shal- 
low general ideas by experience to accurate and fully de- 
terminate ideas. Self-consciousness is not the cause of 
universal ideas, but the universal rises with the rise of 
self-consciousness as its condition (the perception of the 
universal being a perception of the self as producer behind 
the objects). Both appear at the same time as essential 
phases of the same act. The soul uses universals in lan- 
16 



204: PSYCHOLOGIC SYSTEM. 

guag-e long before it recognises the same as universal (its 
first recognition of the universal being only self-recogni- 
tion). Eeflection discovers that these ideas are general, 
but it has used them ever since human beings became 
human. 

§ 141. Why do we hold individual immortality 
to begin with the perception of universals and of self- 
identity rather than with individual reaction in the 
plant, or in that of self-feeling in the animal, or 
rather with that of free self -activity in recollection? 
This question has been partly discussed already 
(§§ 137, 140), but its importance demands all the 
light that can be thrown on it from different points 
of reflection. Undoubtedly there is individuality 
wherever there is reaction. But mere reaction is not 
sufficient to constitute personal identity. The activ- 
ity in reaction arises on account of the activity of 
another being, and hence is not entirely the activity 
of itself in the case of the plant or the nutritive form 
of life, or in that of the mere animal or the feeling 
and locomotive being. Were such individuality to be 
imperishable, it would be unconscious imperishability 
and devoid of memory that recognises its own being 
in the present and in the past. Mere recollection is 
not the recognition of the being of the self. A self 
must be universal, the unity of all its phases, and can 
in no wise be a mere particular thing or act such as 



LANGUAGE. 205 

can be recollected. The self is the principle of the 
process of reaction against the environment and of 
the activity of reproduction and synthesis. 

§ 142. The individual, therefore, is not only a 
self — a universal — but also an entire sphere of par- 
ticularity. The self can generate by the reproductive 
activity all that it has seen and heard, all that it has 
experienced, reproducing it as often as it pleases and 
entirely free from the presence of the objects per- 
ceived, and it can generate from itself the ideas of the 
general processes in which originated the special facts 
of sense-perception. Hence its particulars may be 
and in such cases are also general. Such a stage we 
call Memory, in the special and higher sense of the 
word, as corresponding to Plato's avativrja-if; — not the 
German meaning of Erinnerung, but of Geddchtniss 
— not the memory that recollects, but the memory 
that recalls by the aid of universal ideas and conven- 
tional signs. (Such memory is creative, as it goes 
from the general to the particular.) These general 
ideas are mnemonic aids — pigeon-holes, as it were, in 
the mind — whereby the soul conquers the endless 
multiplicity of details in the world. It refers each 
fact or event to its species, and saves the species under 
a name — then is able to recall by the name a vast 
number of special instances. 



206 PSYCHOLOGIC SYSTEM. 

Hegel, in his Psycholog-y (complete works, vol. vii, 
§ 461), makes much of this distinction between recollection 
and memory by means of words and other signs as a very 
important step in the emancipation of the soul from the 
bonds of Nature. He shows the significance of names as 
making possible the higher stage of the soul, the think- 
ing intellect. 



CHAPTEK XXYII. 

ThinTcing as the Activity of the Understanding , 
including " Common Sense " and Reflection. 

§ 143. In Chapter lY we have already discussed 
the three stages of thought. The first of these is en- 
tirely unaware of the mutual dependence of the things 
of the world, and supposes them all to be self-exist- 
ent, without essential relations to their environments. 
This is called "common sense" when it begins to think 
metaphysically. It seems very clear to its mind that a 
thing either is or is not; that if it is, it makes no 
difference to its existence whether other things are 
or are not. " This tree, this stone, this piece of ice 
would continue to exist if you blotted out all the rest 
of existence.'' It holds that mere relativity, mere 
phenomenal being, is unthinkable and contrary to 
reason. For how can being be itself and at the same 
time dependent on another? Can an existence be in 



THINKING. 207 

and through another? It carries the images of things 
of sense into metaphysics without the slightest mis- 
givings of their absolute validity everywhere. Being 
is being, and there is no confusion of being and non- 
being to be tolerated. The principle of contradiction 
is taken in a superficial meaning: " a thing can not 
be and not be at the same time "; for, taken super- 
ficially, this would deny essential dependence. A 
depends on B in such a way that the being of B is 
the being of A. B is the noumenon, or essential 
being, and A is the phenomenon, or derivative being. 
The argument against motion or change rests on this 
superficial (and superstitious) application of the prin- 
ciple of contradiction: " a thing can not move where 
it is, and of course it can not move where it is 
not; hence it can not move at all.'/ " A thing either 
is in one condition or another; if it is in any one con- 
dition, it is not changing, nor likewise if it is already 
in another; therefore a thing can not change.'' '^ A 
being either is or is not; if it already is, it is not 
becoming, and if it is not, there is likewise no be- 
coming; hence there can be no becoming." In the 
same way consciousness can be proved impossible, for 
common sense can not think such a thing as a self 
that is subject and at the same time object to itself. 
(See Herbert Spencer's First Principles, 1864 edi- 



208 PSYCHOLOGIC SYSTEM. 

tion, pages 63-65.) " The mental act in wliicli self 
is known implies, like every other mental act, a per- 
ceiving subject and a perceived object. If, then, the 
object perceived is self, what is the subject that per- 
ceives? or if it is the true self which thinks, what 
other self can it be that is thought of? Clearly, a 
true cognition of self implies a state in which the 
knowing and the known are one — in which subject 
and object are identified — and this Mr. Mansell right- 
ly holds to be the annihilation of both.'^ 

§ 144. In the discussion of Memory and Concep- 
tion (Chapters XXIY and XXY) we have seen that 
human sense-perception sees each object in its uni- 
versal, and looks upon it as one of an indefinite num- 
ber of examples of the class. There hovers in the 
background an idea of a formative energy or process 
by which the particular object has arisen: if it is a 
pine tree, the pine-making energy made it; if it is a 
table, the table-making energy, howsoever incarnated 
in cabinetmakers, woodsmen, sawmill labourers, de- 
signers that planned the form and size, human soci- 
ety that wanted the table and set to work the special 
^vorkmen that made it. Always back of the object 
is projected a complex unity of energy that created 
it and others of the kind, potentially or really. In 
other words, a double order of existences is presup- 



THINKING. 209 

posed: first, tlie immediate, reached by tlie senses; 
and, secondly, a higher order of existence, a pro- 
ductive energy. Of this second order presupposed, 
the first stage of the understanding (or common 
sense) is not conscious. Hence it takes its particular 
beings, as if they were only particular and not indi- 
visibly attached to a higher order, the generic ener- 
gies that produce and shape the particulars of sense. 

§ 145. On trying to think metaphysically, com- 
mon sense, therefore, figures to itself an abstract world 
of individual beings, each one self -existent, an atomic 
world, in short. For it has never noticed that its per- 
ception is connected with concepts, that it perceives 
each and every object as a result of a process and 
thereby knows it in its class rather than as a unique 
individual. 

§ 146. All that is necessary to refute this empty 
stage of thought is the discovery of essential rela- 
tions — relations of dependence. Some of these are 
already known to common sense, but the fact has not 
attracted its distinct attention. It has not realized 
what they involve. Show that sense-objects are de- 
pendent on others, and that relativity is their essen- 
tial condition, and common sense awakens to a deeper 
thought — that of phenomenal being as opposed to 
noumenal being. It sees that the principle of con- 



210 PSYCHOLOGIC SYSTEM. 

tradiction does not strictly apply to sense-objects or 
dependent beings, or to things tliat change or become; 
for all sncli beings are only partial, and not entire 
beings; they are not wholes or totalities. To make 
them total, we must think them together with their 
producing energies, and then the principle of contra- 
diction will be true if applied to them. I call this 
higher stage of the understanding reflection, to indi- 
cate a deeper and more conscious knowing than mere 



As a human process, the knowing- is always a knowing" 
by universals — a re-cog-nition, and not simple apprehen- 
sion, such as the animals or other beings have that do 
not use language. It is always apperception. The process 
of development of stages of thought begins with sensuous 
ideas, which perceive mere individual, concrete, real objects, 
if common sense is correct in its views. In conceiving these, 
it uses language and thinks general ideas, but it does not 
notice this fact, nor is it conscious of the relations involved 
in such objects. This is the first stage of the understand- 
ing. The world exists for it as an innumerable congeries 
of things, each one independent of the other, and possess- 
ing self-existence. It is the standpoint from which atom- 
ism would be adopted as the philosophic system. Ask it 
what the ultimate principle of existence is, and it would 
reply, " Atoms." But this view of the world is an un- 
stable one, and requires very little reflection to overturn 
it, and bring one to the next basis — that of abstract ideas, 
or ideas of what is only partially realized in itself and is 
partly in and through another. When the mind looks care- 
fully at the world of things, it finds that there are depend- 
ence and interdependence. Each object is related to some- 
thing else, and changes when that changes. Each object 



THINKING. 211 

is a part of a process that is going- on. The process pro- 
duced it, and the process will destroy it — nay, it is destroy- 
ing- the object of our sense-perception by changing it now, 
while yve look at it. We find, therefore, that things are 
not the true beings which we thought them to be, but 
processes are the reality. Science takes this attitude with- 
out being fully aware of it, especially when its disciples 
are in the " common-sense " stage of thought, and studies 
out the history of each thing in its rise and its disappear- 
ance, and it calls this history the truth. This stage of 
thinking does not believe in atoms or in things; it believes 
in forces and processes — called " abstract ideas " because 
they are negative, and can not be seen by the senses. This 
is the dynamic standpoint in philosophy. Reflection (the 
name we give to the second and mature stage of the under- 
standing) knows that these abstract ideas possess more 
truth, more reality, than the " things " of sense-percep- 
tion; the force is more real than the thing, because it out- 
lasts a thing— it causes things to originate, to change, and 
disappear. 

§ 147. This stage of reflection, with its doctrine 
of abstract ideas, or of negative powers or forces, 
finally becomes convinced of the essential unity of 
all processes and of all forces; it sets up the doctrine 
of the correlation of forces^ and believes that persist- 
ent force is the ultimate truth, the fundamental real- 
ity of the world. This we may call a concrete idea, 
for it sets up a principle which is the origin of all 
things and forces, and also the destroyer of them all, 
and hence more real, more concrete, than the world 
of things and forces; and because this idea, when 
carefully thought out, proves to be the idea of self- 



212 PSYCHOLOGIC SYSTEM. 

determination — self-activity. Persistent force, as 
taiiglit us by the scientific men of our day, is tlie sole 
ultimate principle, and as such it gives rise to all ex- 
istence by its self-activity, for there is nothing else 
for it to act upon. It causes all origins, all changes, 
and all evanescence. It gives rise to the particular 
forces — heat, light, electricity, magnetism, etc. — 
which in their turn cause the evanescent forms which 
sense-perception sees as " things.'' 
We have described three phases: 

I. Sensuous Ideas perceive " things." 

II. Abstract Ideas perceive " forces." 

III. Concrete Idea perceives " persistent force." 
TV. There is one step higher — namely, the Abso- 
lute Idea, which i^ perceived by the reason as self- 
determined (see Chapter XXYIII). 

In this progress from one phase to another, the 
understanding advances to a deeper and truer reality 
at each step. Plato and Aristotle call this stage of 
thinking, which includes under it I, II, III of the 
above, the hidvoia ; its name was '' discursive intel- 
lect " at one time. 

Hume, in his famous sketch of the Human Under- 
standing- (Book I, Part I, of his Treatise of Human Nature), 
makes all the perceptions of the human mind resolve them- 
selves into two distinct kinds: impressions and ideas. " The 
difference between them consists in the degrees of force 



THINKING. 213 

and liveliness with which they strike upon the mind, and 
make their way into our thoug-ht and consciousness. 
Those perceptions which enter with the most force and 
violence we may name impressions, and under this name 
include all our sensations, passions, and emotions, as they 
make their first appearance in the soul. By ideas, I mean 
the faint images of these in thinking- and reasoning-." In 
his maturer work, which he desired to take the place 
of his earlier Treatise on Human Nature, Hume divides 
" all the perceptions of the mind into two classes or spe- 
cies, which are disting-uished by their different degrees 
of force and vivacity. The less forcible and lively are 
commonly denominated thoughts and ideas. The other spe- 
cies, ... let us call impressions, ... by which I mean all 
our more lively perceptions when we hear, or see, or feel, 
or love, or hate, or desire, or will " (An Enquiry Concern- 
ing" Human Understanding, section 2). " The identity 
which we ascribe to the mind of man is only a fictitious 
one" (Treatise, etc.. Book I, Part IV, section 6). "What 
we call a mind is nothing but a heap or collection of dif- 
ferent perceptions, united together by certain relations, 
and supposed, though falsely, to be endowed with perfect 
simplicity and identity " (Book I, Part IV, section 2). He 
builds the higher faculties on the lower, and assumes the 
superior truthfulness of what he calls " impressions." 
It is the rednctio ad absurdum of the philosophy of Locke. 
The second or third stage of reflection, if consistent, vs^ould 
not admit the reality to be the object of sense-impressions, 
and the abstract ideas to be only " faint images." One 
who holds, like Herbert Spencer, that persistent force is 
the ultimate reality — " the sole truth, which transcends 
experience by underlying it " — ought to hold that the gen- 
eralization which reaches the idea of unity of force is the 
truest and most adequate of thoughts. Herbert Spencer 
is therefore inconsistent when he holds substantially the 
doctrine of Hume, in the words: "We must predicate 
nothing of objects too great or too miiltitudinotis to be 
mentally represented, or we must make our predications 
by means of extremely inadequate representations of such 



214 PSYCHOLOGIC SYSTEM. 

objects — mere symbols of them " (page 27 of First Prin- 
ciples) . 

§ 148. The understanding, therefore, has two 
phases, the earlier one being naive and dogmatical, 
and the later one '^ enlightened " and sceptical. The 
so-called '^ rationalism " belongs to this second stage. 
While the first looks upon the sense-world as com- 
posed of real, independent beings, co-ordinate with 
man and God, the second looks upon all sensuous 
things, all existence in time and space, as phenomenal, 
as only the show of true being. The persistent force 
is the noumenon of which all changes of matter and 
all the transmutations of force are the manifestation 
or phenomenon. There are many names besides " per- 
sistent force " for this noumenon ; indeed, that of 
force is not a suitable designation, for the reason that 
force implies an existent opposite; for there can be 
no force except in a state of tension, although the cor- 
relationists have not perceived this. 

§ 149. The understanding in both of its stages 
holds to the finite. In the first stage it mistakes the 
phenomenal for the noumenal, taking perishable 
things for imperishable; the second stage mistaking 
the noumenal for the phenomenal, and taking even 
the absolute for the relative. We have called the 
former common sense, and the latter reflection. Re- 



THINKING. 215 

flection makes all tilings relative; we never get be- 
yond the dependent and relative. The objects which 
we perceive by the senses are things, and all of them 
in a process of origination, change, and decay — all 
proceeding from the influence of the environment — 
from a beyond through the action of forces. If we 
go back of one of these, we come not to an absolute 
source, but only^ to a relative source — another thing 
as relative as the first. It is an infinite regress; we 
never come to the ultimate source. Keflection finds, 
therefore, no adequate source, but only a transmitting 
link of the causality beyond. This stage of thinking 
seems to be an ultimate and final one, but only be- 
cause the mind figures to itself a world of separate 
things and forces beyond the object, a multitude that 
must be seized one after the other, and whose inven- 
tory can never be completed. The understanding 
supposes that it must approach the world of true 
being through the world of particulars from which it 
starts in its first stage — that of common sense. But 
this is not the case, as it soon sees when it begins to 
consider the results and the presuppositions of reflec- 
tion, its second stage. 

§ 150. Take the results of reflection: all the ob- 
jects of the senses are relative. They are transitory, 
and have originated in the past from other, different 



216 PSYCHOLOGIC SYSTEM. 

beings — in an endless series. They are changing 
while we behold them, and passing on into other 
beings — in an endless series. Each one is a mani- 
festation of some phase of an essence that reveals itself 
not in each, nor in any one of them, but only in the 
entire series. Each is therefore not the whole of 
itself, but only a fragmentary realization of its true 
self, the essence that reveals itself only in the entire 
series. 

§ 151. Take the presuppositions of reflection: 
The fact that the series of relative beings must pro- 
ceed to the infinite, means that no tern* in the series 
can possibly be anything but relative; no one of 
them can be an original source of energy; no one of 
them can be self-determined or self -active; for a 
self -active being would be an original source of move- 
ment and formation, and that would end the series. 
It follows that reflection presupposes the source as 
entirely outside the series and distinct from it. The 
source is different from and alien to the members of 
the series. It produces them all, and causes also their 
transmutation from one into another. It is a force, 
but not a thing. It is not even a particular force, 
but only the origin of the series of forces. It is re- 
garded as a negative unity. A negative unity is that 
which produces and destroys a series of results, being. 



THINKING. 217 

in itself, outside of and beyond the series in such a 
manner that the series can arise and pass away with- 
out involving any reaction or effect upon the negative 
unity. Such a negative unity is therefore transcend- 
enty or existent apart from the series of things and 
forces of which it is the negative unity. 

The East Indian thinking", particularly in the Sankya 
and Vedanta systems, conceives in the clearest manner 
this neg-ative unity as transcendent, as above and beyond 
the series of beings in the world. It is not a creator even, 
for that M^ould involve a transfer of true being- to the 
world. The world is therefore a complete illusion, and 
is not even a manifestation or phenomenon; it is not the 
revelation or even the appearance of the negative unity 
or Brahma. When the night of Brahma comes, all particu- 
lar existences, even the highest gods, are totally absorbed 
into him, and lose their being utterly. There is no descrip- 
tion to be given of the negative unity except that it is in- 
different to all that is finite. It has no quality, no quan- 
tity, no attributes of any kind. It is the simple negation 
of all that exists or can exist. For if we take away all 
limitation, all determinations, all special attributes, we 
have the utter denial of all existence. The absolute nega- 
tive unity neither exists for anything else nor for itself; 
it is utterly distinctionless. It is the same as pure noth- 
ing. To this idea reflection mounts in its search for the 
explanation of relative beings. The abyss of nothingness 
discovered in an absolute negative unity has been mis- 
taken for an unknown and unknowable object. But this 
is an inadvertence of reflection which knows full well all 
that there is in the negative unity — namely, perfect emx)ti- 
ness and vacuity. For if there is any causality, any cre- 
ative power, even this gives existence and a series of par- 
ticulars as the revelation or manifestation of its causal 
energy. 



218 PSYCHOLOGIC SYSTEM, 

§ 152. The understanding as reflection arrives at 
a clearing up; the Germans call it an Aufhldrung. 
It discounts the entire world of experience, the total- 
ity of human learning. All is a knowledge of phe- 
nomena, of vanity rather than of true being. The 
understanding feels a pride in its achievements; for 
it annuls not only the results of its sense-perception, 
but also of its moral and religious intuitions. The 
contents of the ethical world are a series of relations, 
and so, too, are those of the religious world — dis- 
tinctions purporting to relate to the divine. The re- 
flecting understanding sees that all distinctions belong 
to the world of phenomena, and not to the transcend- 
ent negative unity. Hence religion does not con- 
ceive in its idea of God any ultimate being. It is 
only an anthropomorphic concept. Hence agnosticism 
or atheism is the inevitable conclusion. 

In the French Kevolution and the epoch preceding" 
it we have the Aufklarung par excellence. All ideas of the 
divine were attacked and all institutions of man were as- 
saulted. Every attempt to reach a deeper foundation on 
which the state and the Church could be built more se- 
curely was destined to failure. The lowest depth was 
reached in the Reig-n of Terror, when each citizen be- 
came suspicious of every other. When no one can trust 
his fellow, death is the only remedy; one must destroy 
his neig"hbour, and society as a whole must commit sui- 
cide. But the mind when it first comes to this insight 
into the presupposition of the absolute relativity theory 
feels the exhilaration of free thinking — i. e., of thinking 



THINKING. 219 

that can reach a transcendent principle above all experi- 
ence. Herbert Spencer begins his book on First Principles 
with a presentation of the doctrine of the Unknowable, 
resting- it on this insig-ht into a neg-ative unity beyond 
i3henomena, or found to be the persistent force in which 
phenomena lose their individual being- just as the particular 
waves sink to rest and obliteration in the surface of the 
sea. Spinoza reached this insight, and stated it in his doc- 
trine of Substance. All being- is lost in the empty sub- 
stance conceived as the negative unity. The Sophists in 
Greece felt the same exhilaration as the emancipated free- 
thinkers of the French Revolution. They had learned to 
think away all fixed beliefs and to annihilate in their 
arguments all certainty of being. Hence any moral or 
religious ideas could be overthrown by showing that they 
presupposed the certainty of objective being. The Eleatic 
philosophy, like Spinozism, reaches a negative unity — 
pure being, empty and passive; transcendent of the world 
of multiplicity. Plato it is who turns the current of 
human thinking, and by a more careful inventory of the 
presuppositions of reflection discovers the positive doc- 
trine of the negative unity; for he sees that the negative 
unity is not the complete thought of the ultimate or 
absolute, but only the half thoug-ht of it. The ultimate 
principle is self-determination, and not simply deter- 
minationlessness. There could be no negative unity as 
a higher reality above phenomenon, or time and space 
illusions, unless it were a self-related negative. Unless 
it were a self-determined being it could not be, for a mere 
negation of phenomena would be, as above stated, a mere 
nothing. 

§ 152. The insight into the negative unity is the 

highest reach of the understanding, and this is the 

insight into its own futility and the illusion lying at 

the bottom of all experience. The entire world of 

experience is merely relative and phenomenal being, 
17 



220 PSYCHOLOGIC SYSTEM. 

and all that the understanding can know is relative 
and transitory. It knows that the true being is the 
annulment of the entire world of experience. But 
with the aid of Plato's thought it now investigates this 
negative unity and finds that it, too, is a result, and 
not something primordial. It is only a phase of self- 
determined being. With the arrival at the idea of 
self-determined being we have left the understand- 
ing and arrived at reason, which knows the total and 
interprets all things in the light of the total. 



CHAPTER XXYIIL 

The Reason. 

§ 153. The stages of the understanding, which we 
have named respectively common sense and reflection, 
have been characterized by the views of the world 
which they presuppose. One's view of the world de- 
termines his knowing in all its details, strange and 
improbable as this may at first seem. Common sense 
assumes that experience has before it a world of com- 
plete individual things which either are or are not, 
and do not exist in a state of becoming or change, nor 
depend essentially upon one another. This assump- 



THE REASON. " 221 

tion is not true, and common sense is therefore an in- 
correct species of knowing. It colours every judgment 
that it makes and every observation that it records 
with this false use of the principle of contradiction. 
Keflection, or the second stage of the understanding, 
assumes the falsity of the standpoint of common 
sense. It assumes that all immediate objects in our 
world of experience are in a state of becoming, or 
genesis and decay. Moreover, it conceives true being 
as a negative unity which is devoid of the multiplex 
distinctions that characterize the particular things 
and forces of experience. But its negative unity, 
being conceived as by itself and not in correlation 
with the particular forces and things which vanish 
in it, is a totality by itself, and hence self-existent. 
If it has no determinations, marks,, or attributes, and 
does not receive them from anything else or originate 
them w^ithin itself, it is a nothing; for it has no dis- 
tinctions w^ithin it or on it whereby it can be dis- 
criminated or can discriminate itself from nothing. 
And yet the highest thought of the understanding 
has traced all the existences of the world of experi- 
ence into that negative unity as the ultimate source. 
Unless, therefore, the Absolute is cause of these de- 
terminations of the world of experience, as well as 
their destroyer, they can not have arisen at all, and 



222 PSYCHOLOGIC SYSTEM. 

the work of tlie understanding, whicli everywhere has 
to assume the distinctions (things and forces) of the 
world as its subject-matter, is at once rendered a 
nullity in all its stages. Hence the same premises and 
the same course of reasoning which reflection uses to 
establish the doctrine of persistent force, Spinozan sub- 
stance, Eleatic being, East Indian Brahma, or what- 
ever form the pantheistic doctrine of negative unity 
takes, establish just as well and with the same logical 
clearness a creative or self-determining unity. Self- 
determining unity must be the basis of negative unity, 
its logical condition. 

§ 154. A self -active unity is therefore presup- 
posed to make the negative unity of pantheism pos- 
sible. Self-activity is negative unity in one phase — 
namely, the self as subject of the act — the determiner 
that determines itself — is as such undetermined. It 
is passive only as determined — as the object, but not 
as subject. Now, as subject it is entirely without 
what we have called (in § 153) the determinations 
of the world of experience; it is wholly transcend- 
ent. But as determined it is passive and multiple, 
like the objects of experience. It contains, then, both 
the factors with which the reflective understanding 
deals; it contains the negative unity as the subject 
considered apart from the object, the determiner as 



THE REASON. 223 

apart from its determinations. The understanding 
makes only a regressive movement; it traces up the 
determinations to the determiner on which they de- 
pend, and finds it to be a negative unity, instead of 
an originating cause or determiner. 

§ 155. The understanding arrives at a negative 
unity, which, if properly comprehended, is an original, 
spontaneous cause — a causa sui. This is self-activ- 
ity. The analysis of self-activity finds self as sub- 
ject and self as object; self as determiner and self as 
determined. The negative unity is the end of analy- 
sis, and as causa sui it is the beginning of synthesis; 
for a self -activity determines itself and produces dis- 
tinctions within itself. It externalizes or makes itself 
objective. The understanding is a process of analysis, 
while reason begins with synthesis. The understand- 
ing explains by neglecting or annulling the deter- 
minations of the world of experience, while the reason 
explains by showing the objectivating of the deter- 
minations of the Absolute Self. All is a process of 
revelation of the divine. 

§ 156. Memory and concept-forming activity con- 
vert the results of sense-perception into general terms. 
Their presupposition is that every object is one of a 
class that the object-making process has made, or will 
make, or might make. The understanding devotes its 



224 PSYCHOLOGIC SYSTEM. 

attention to the discovery of the concrete terms in 
which these generic processes are expressed. While 
the concept-forming activity merely asserts the exist- 
ence of such generic process as the explanation of the 
object without examining what it is, persistently af- 
firming each object to belong to a class and to be only 
one specimen out of many similar objects produced 
by the objective causal process, the understanding, 
on the other hand, ascertains the particulars and 
mode of action of the object-forming processes of 
the world. It ascertains the warp and the woof of 
human experience. In finding the relations which 
each object has to every other, it learns the forms of 
production, and becomes a real knowing of the ener- 
gies that produce the classes that language expresses 
and memory retains. 

The child asks for the name of each new object. To 
the superficial observer he seems to have a superstitious 
reverence for mere names; for he seems to be perfectly- 
satisfied when he learns the name. But to the psychologist 
the name-learningf process has significance as the mani- 
festation of the concept-forming" stage of the mind — the 
distinctively human stage. These names are empty bags, 
which will hold all the experience of after-life that will 
cluster round the class of objects named. The name will 
give unity to that thread of experience and observation. 
"What is this?" Answer, "An acorn." The word acorn 
will tie together, or hold like a bag or a pigeon-hole, all 
the perceptions and reflections that relate to the genesis 
of oak trees, their doings and relations to the rest of the 



THE REASON. 225 

world. Hence languag-e is the basis of memory properly 
so called, for it aids memory by g-iving it the inestimable 
gift of classification. It enables it to divide and conquer. 
Memory aided bj^ language can re-enforce its recollection 
by the causal insight added to each object — viz., that it is 
the result of a process that has made it, and is one of a 
class having the same characteristics because made by the 
same method of action. It can deduce from the cause or 
process, as Avell as recall its sense-impressions. 

§ 157. The understanding in both its forms (com- 
mon sense and reflection) presupposes the concept 
stage already attained. Each object is one of a class. 
Common sense has a firm conviction that each object 
is an independent whole, because it unconsciously 
adds to the object its universal process; for that 
addition does make it whole, but a whole as species 
though not as particular sense-object. The seeing 
of the particular in its process or its universal makes 
it an individual, and the thought that thinks this 
is common sense. But reflection follows next, and 
necessarily; for the activity of the mind, which sets 
up each object as a class or a cycle of objects, will 
begin to analyze and discover the relations of the 
object to its environment — not merely its environ- 
ment in space, but in time — its antecedents and con- 
sequents — its origin and its destiny; how it has pro- 
ceeded from the object-making cause, and where it will 
vanish in other stages of the causal process. The 



226 PSYCHOLOGIC SYSTEM. 

understanding, therefore, in both its phases depends 
on language, and language is the product of the 
phantasy in its several shapes of recollection, mem- 
ory, and imagination joined to the concept-forming 
activity. 

Sense-ideas throug-h which common sense looks upon 
the world as a world of independent objects do not cog- 
nize the world truly. The next step, abstract ideas, cog- 
nizes the world as a process of forces, and " things " are 
seen to be mere temporary equilibria in the interaction 
of forces; " each thing is a bundle of forces." But the 
concrete idea of the persistent force sees a deeper and 
more permanent reality underlying particular forces. It 
is one ultimate force. In it all multiplicity of existences 
has vanished, and yet it is the source of all particular 
existence. This view of the world, on the standpoint of 
concrete idea, is pantheistic. It makes out a one supreme 
principle which originates and destroys all particular ex- 
istences, all finite beings. We have already intimated 
above that it is the standpoint of Orientalism, or of the 
Asiatic thought. Buddhism and Brahmanism have reached 
it, and not transcended it. It is a necessary stage of un- 
folding in the mind, just as much as the standpoint of the 
larst stage of the understanding, which regards the world 
as composed of a multiplicity of independent things; or 
the standpoint of the second stage of the understanding, 
that of reflection, which looks upon the world as a collec- 
tion of relative existences in a state of process. 

§ 158. The final standpoint of the intellect is that 
in which it perceives the highest principle to be a self- 
determining or self-active Being, self-conscious, and 
creator of a world which manifests him. A logical 
investigation of the principle of " persistent force " 



THE REASON. 227 

would prove that this principle of Personal Being is 
presupposed as its true form. Since the " persistent 
force '' is the sole and ultimate reality, it originates 
all other reality only by self -activity, and thus is self- 
determined. But such a persistent force is possible 
only in the form of personality. Self-determination 
implies self-consciousness and personality as the true 
form of its existence. 

These four forms of thinking", which we have arbi- 
trarily called sensuous, abstract, concrete, and absolute ideas, 
correspond to four views of the world: (1) As a cong-eries 
of independent thing's; (2) as a play of forces; (3) as the 
evanescent appearance of a neg-ative essential power; (4) 
as the creation of a Personal Creator, who makes it the 
theatre of the development of conscious beings in his 
image. Each step upward arrives at a more adequate 
idea of the true reality. Force is more real than thing; 
persistent force than particular forces; Absolute Person 
is more real than the force or forces which he creates. 
The fourth stage we name Reason; the others belong 
to the understanding. This final form of thinking is the 
only form which is consistent with a true theory of edu- 
cation. Each individual should ascend by education into 
participation — conscious participation — in the life of the 
species. Institutions — family, society, state, Church — all 
are instrumentalities by which the humble individual may 
avail himself of the help of the race, and live over in him- 
self its life. The highest stage of thinking is the stage 
of insight. It sees the world as explained by the principle 
of Absolute Person. It finds the world of institutions a 
world in harmony with such a principle. 



228 PSYCHOLOGIC SYSTEM. 

CHAPTEK XXIX. 

A Review of the Psychology of the Intellect, 

§ 159. It will have been noticed by tlie attentive 
reader that in the foregoing sketch of the systematic 
exposition of the intellectual activities there has been 
constant return to the beginning; there has been 
repetition and again repetition. Some readers will 
have seen that each repetition presents the subject 
in some new light, and aids to form an all-round view 
of the subject. On each new, higher level the region 
that has been traversed takes on new aspects. But 
the most important reason for so much repetition is 
the fact that each step is to be followed by many re- 
sults. After expounding one line of result, it be- 
comes necessary to expound another, and hence a new 
statement of the first step must be made and its con- 
nection with the second line of result exhibited. An- 
other and another line of result follows. Each new 
restatement throws, or should throw, a new light on 
the method of procedure; for a system is a method 
applied in such a way as to unfold a progressive real- 
ization of a principle. Self-activity is the principle 
of psychology. It is a principle that contains a prog- 
ress implied in it. Eor, let us presuppose an activity, 



A REVIEW. 229 

it will produce something and will reveal a method 
or form of acting. Hence after setting up self-activ- 
ity we are bound to see what it will do; thus the 
principle becomes method. Next, if the method is 
continued, it will grow to a system which is a more 
complete revelation of the principle and method than 
could have been seen at the beginning. A system 
makes each step or stage throw light on each pre- 
ceding and each subsequent step. The plant's activ- 
ity of assimilation throws light on the animal's activ- 
ity of feeling; for feeling is the activity of assimila- 
tion without food to act upon; it is a going through 
of the activity with itself for its food. Each higher 
activity acts upon the form (but not on the content) 
of the lower. Each higher result is as form again 
the content of a still higher form.. Hegel claims in 
his Logic to have discovered the true method, because 
he has found the principle of self -activity — a princi- 
ple which is likewise a method, because it acts, essen- 
tially. He names it Begriff, as Plato named the same 
principle Idea, to indicate its identity with the self- 
activity which we observe in mind.* Eichte calls it 
subject-objectivity, for it is a self which is active in 
making itself its own object. 

* See A, T. Ormond's Basal Concepts in Philosoj)liy 
for a strong- and valuable exposition of self-activity. 



230 PSYCHOLOGIC SYSTEM. 

{a) On this scale of degrees we rise from plant to ani- 
mal, and from animal to man. The individuality of each 
lies in its energy. The energy of the plant is expended in 
assimilating the external; that of the animal in assimi- 
lating and reproducing; that of man in assimilating, re- 
producing, and self -producing or creating. But it is a 
discrete degree rather than a continuous degree from plant 
to animal; more and more assimilation does not bring 
us nearer to feeling, but the contrary is the result; for 
feeling arrests assimilation and reflects on its form. The 
discrete degree that separates the plant from the animal 
is measured by the distance bet^veen destroying and re- 
constructing; the difference between the animal and the 
man is measured by the distance between reproducing and 
self-producing, or, in another form of statement, it is the 
difference in two kinds of perception — the perception of 
object as particular and the perception of object as uni- 
versal. More and more feeling does not approach think- 
ing, but the contrary; for thinking arrests the develop- 
ment of feeling, and reflects on the form of activity which 
constitutes feeling — namely, it reflects on representation 
or producing-in-self what is external, and thereby making 
an object of it. Thinking reflects on this, and adds to the 
represented object the process of reproduction which feel- 
ing constitutes, and thus attains to a higher and more per- 
fect knowledge of the object, for it sees it as a product of a 
complex unity of causes, the universal that generates a class. 

(b) It is comparatively easy to recognise the difference 
between nutrition and perception; indeed, one would say 
that the difficult part is the recognition of the essential 
identity of their energies. On the contrary, the identity 
of sense-perception and thought is readily acknowledged, 
but their profound difference is not seen without careful 
attention. Inasmuch as the difference between sense-per- 
ception and thought underlies such distinctions, as, for 
instance, that between individuality that can survive death 
of the body and that that can not survive death of the 
body, the discrimination of sense-perception and thought 
justifles a careful discussion. 



A REVIEW. 231 

(c) The majority of thinkers who have advanced or 
defended the doctrine of immortality of the human soul 
have dravv^n the line of individual survival between the 
activity of sense-perception and the activity of reflection 
and reason, the former activity being understood as that 
which perceives particular objects, while the latter per- 
ceives general or universal objects. These general or uni- 
versal objects are, however, as we have often reiterated 
in the preceding chapters, not mere classes or abstrac- 
tions, fictions of the mind for genera and species, but they 
stand for generic processes in the world — such processes 
in the world as abide while their products come into being 
and pass away. They stand, in each case of a noun used as 
a class name, for this complex unity of causes that pro- 
duced the individuals named by that noun and still sus- 
tains them in existence; this is the universal or generic. 
This is the true thought that underlies the old doctrine 
of realism as opposed to nominalism. The universal or 
productive process is more real than its dead results. 
Plato's ideas were his technical expression for self-active 
process or universal. Aristotle renamed it " entelechy." 
The oak before me is the product of a power that mani- 
fests itself in successive stages as acorn, sapling, tree, 
crop of acorns, etc., these stages being successive and par- 
tial, while the energy is the unity whence proceed all 
these phases through its action on the environment. The 
energy is a generic process, and whatever reality the par- 
ticular existence may get from it is borrowed from its 
reality. The reality of this acorn is derived from the 
reality of the organic energy of the oak on which it grew. 
The reality of that organic energy is at least equal to all 
the reality that has proceeded from it. 

(d) In the two forms of the reaction of energy, or in- 
dividuality, which have been discussed as nutrition and 
feeling, the former draws the object within itself and 
destroys its objective form, while in feeling the individu- 
ality recoils from the attack made on the organism and 
reproduces its symbolic equivalent. Both of these forms 
find the occasion of action in the contact with the external. 



232 PSYCHOLOGIC SYSTEM. 

Without conjunction, without limitation of the individu- 
ality by the object, there arises neither nutrition nor 
feeling. This mutual limitation is the reduction of the 
two, the subject and object, to the form of externality — 
namely, to mutual dependence — and hence it is the de- 
struction of individuality so far as this dependence exists. 
By the act of assimilation, on the one hand, the vegeta- 
tive energy reasserts its own independence and individu- 
ality by annulling the individuality of the object. The 
sentient process, on the other hand, reasserts its independ- 
ence by escaping from the continuance of the impression 
from without, and by reproducing for itself a similar lim- 
itation through its own freedom or spontaneity. It ele- 
vates the real limit, by which it is made dependent on an 
external object, into an ideal limit that depends on its own 
free act. Thus both nutrition and feeling are ■ manifesta- 
tions of self-identity in which the energy acts for the pres- 
ervation of its individuality against submersion in another, 
and thus attains progressive stages of freedom. 

(e) To explain this difficult point still once more: These 
attempts to preserve individuality which we see in nutri- 
tion and feeling do not succeed in obtaining perfect inde- 
pendence. Both these activities, as reactions upon the 
environment, depend on the continuance of the action of 
the environment. When the assimilation is complete the 
reaction ceases, and there must be new interaction with 
the environment before the process begins again; hence 
its individuality requires a permanent interaction with 
external conditions, and the plant and the vegetative 
process in animals is not a complete or perfect individu- 
ality. It is not entirely independent. Its process involves 
a correlative existence, an inorganic world for its food. 

(f) The activity of mere feeling or sense-perception, 
too, is aroused by external impressions, and is conditioned 
by them. If there is no object, then there is no act of per- 
ception. Every occasion given for the self -activity in- 
volved in perception is an occasion for the manifestation 
of a self-activity that acts only on external incitation and 
is not yet separable from the body. 



A EEVIEW. 233 

(g) The reproduction of impressions that we have 
described above as the essential function of feeling- or 
sense-perception is not the reproduction known under the 
name of recollection or memory. Recollection is a repro- 
duction of the perception, while perception is a reproduc- 
tion of the impression. The so-called faculties of the 
mind rise in a scale, beginning- with feeling-. We have 
shown, in (a) above, that each hig-her activity is distin- 
guished from the one below it by the circumstance that 
it sees not only the object which was seen by the lower 
faculty, but also the fonn of the activity of that faculty. 
Each new faculty, therefore, is a new stage of self-con- 
sciousness. 

§ 160. From a study of the higher faculties of 
the soul one learns much in regard to the destiny of 
the lower faculties. It has already been pointed out 
that with the arrival at the use of language the soul 
has come to know itself as independent self-activity. 
But there are many grades of knowing in the cogni- 
tion of a thing, feeling, sense-perception, memory, 
common sense, reflection, reason, each one of these 
having a more complete consciousness than the one 
below it, because it knows the content which the 
lower one knew, and, in addition, knows the form 
or method of knowing that appertains to the lower 
faculty. Permanent individuality may exist as low 
as the animals; indeed, it is probable that it does so 
exist, for the world seems to be a sort of cradle for the 
nurture of independent individuality. The plants and 
the animals, therefore, are important stages in this 



234 PSYCHOLOGIC SYSTEM. 

process of nurture. But moral individuality is the 
beginning of real immortality, because at that point 
alone comes in the consciousness of the self as a re- 
sponsible source of action. Infants who die before 
they attain a sense of responsibility would never 
be able to remember their earth life, but doubtless 
their already permanent individuality would develop 
into consciousness without transmigration or rebirth. 

The ascent above sense-perception and recollection in- 
dicates to us the subordinate place of those faculties, and 
also their moribund character. As Aristotle hinted, in his 
profound treatise on the Soul, these lower faculties are 
not immortal in their nature (although they will long 
outlast this earthly life). In thinking of such faculties 
in the lives of great men of science — like Agassiz, Cuvier, 
Lyell, Von Humboldt, Darwin, and Goethe — we see what 
this means. The first and crudest stage of mental cul- 
ture depends chiefly on sense-perception and recollection. 
After the general has been discovered, the mind uses it 
more and more, and the information of the senses be- 
comes a smaller and smaller part of the knowledge. Agas- 
siz saw the whole fish in a single scale — so that the scale 
was all that was required to suggest the whole. Lyell could 
see the w^hole history of its origin in a pebble. Cuvier 
could see the entire animal-skeleton in one of its bones. 
The memory that holds types, processes, and universals, 
the condensed form of all human experience, the total ag- 
gregate of all that the senses have perceived of the universe 
and of all reflection on it — this constitutes the chief fac- 
ulty of the scientific man, and sense-perception and mere 
recollection play the most insignificant part. This points 
to the complete independence of the soul as regards its 
outward experience. When the soul can think the creative 
thought, the theoretic vision of the world— ^ dewpia, as Aris- 



A REVIEW. 235 

totle calls it — then it comes to perfect insight, for it sees 
the whole in each part, and does not require any longer 
the mechanical memory, because it has a higher form of 
intellect that sees immediately in the individual thing its 
history, just as Lyell or Agassiz saw the history of a 
pebble or a fish, or Asa Gray saw all botany in a single 
specimen. Mechanical memory is thus taken up into a 
higher '* faculty," and, its function being' absorbed, it grad- 
ually perishes. But it never perishes until its function is 
provided for in a more complete manner. This higher fac- 
ulty has been named by the Schoolmen angelic knowing.* 

§ 161. Man is born an animal, but must become a 

spiritual being. He is limited to the present moment 

and to the present place, but he must conquer all 

places and all times. Man, therefore, has an ideal of 

culture which it is his destiny or vocation to achieve. 

He must lift himself above his mere particular exist-. 
ence toward universal existence. All peoples, no matter 
how degraded, recognise this duty. The South Sea Islander 
commences with his infant child and teaches him habits 
that conform to that phase of civilization — an ethical code 
fitting him to live in that community — and, above all, the 
mother tongue, so that he may receive the results of the 
perceptions and reflections of his fellow-beings and com- 
municate his own to them. The experience of the tribe, 
a slow accretion through years and ages, shall be pre- 
served and communicated to each newborn child, vica- 
riously saving him from endless labour and suffering. 
Through culture the individual shall acquire the experi- 
ence of the species — shall live the life of the race, and be 
lifted above himself. Such a process as this tribal culture 
thus puts man above the accidents of time and place in 

* See my booklet. The Spiritual Sense of Dante's Di- 
vina Commedia, § 38. 

IS 



236 PSYCHOLOGIC SYSTEM. 

so far as the tribe or race has accomplished this. What- 
ever lifts man above immediate existence, the wants and 
impulses of the present moment, and gives him self-con- 
trol, is called ethical. The ethical g-rounds itself, there- 
fore, in man's existence in the species and in the possibil- 
ity of the realization of the species in the individual. 
Hence, too, the ethical points toward immortality as its 
presupposition. Death comes through the inadequacy of 
the individual organism to adjust itself to the environ- 
ment; the conditions become too general, and the body 
gets lost in the changes that come to it. Were the indi- 
vidual capable of adapting himself to all changes, there 
could be no death; the organism would be perfectly uni- 
versal. This process of culture that distinguishes man 
from all other animals points toward the formation of an 
immortal individual distinct from the body within which 
it dwells — an individual who has the capacity to realize 
within himself the entire species. Immortality thus com- 
plements the ethical idea. In an infinite universe the 
process of realizing the experience of all beings by each 
being must itself be of infinite duration. The doctrine 
of immortality, therefore, places man's life under the form 
of eternity and ennobles his earthly career to its highest 
potency. 



CHAPTER XXX. 

The Will and the Intellect. 

§ 162. The highest step of knowing is self -know- 
ing; not mere consciousness, but the recognition that 
reason is not only in me, but also beyond the world, 
or in its innermost, as its cause. Completed self -deter- 



THE WILL AND THE INTELLECT. 23T 

mination is not only intellect, but will. Imperfect 
will and imperfect intellect are not identical. But 
new light may be thrown on the ascent from sense- 
perception to reason by considering the interaction of 
will and intellect. It will be seen that the will com- 
bines with the intellect to produce the higher orders 
of knowing. 

§ 163. It is usually taken for granted that the 
mind is at its lowest stage of self-activity in sense- 
perception — that is to say, when it is simply receptive 
of the impressions of the senses. The moment it at- 
tempts to guide these impressions, or to reflect on 
them, the mind ascends to higher forms of activity, 
and limits the scope of its passivity. When at this 
lowest point of activity, the infinite manifold of ob- 
jects before the senses engrosses the entire atten- 
tion. One object succeeds another in controlling 
the focus of attention. This condition of mind is 
very nearly that of the idiot, who is successively at- 
tracted by one object after another, and never re- 
flects, or connects these objects by the thought of 
causality, or attempts to guide his perceptions and 
make them a consistent whole. The contents of his 
mind are therefore a mass of sense-perceptions, with- 
out connection between them. 

§ 164. Intellectual culture begins when the will 



238 PSYCHOLOGIC SYSTEM. 

first commences to act on the senses. Its first action 
produces what is called attention. Attention selects 
one object out of the manifold and collects the various 
impressions made upon its senses, while it wilfully 
neglects the multitude of other objects that are in its 
presence — it inhibits the consideration of these others. 
Attention, then, may be regarded as the name of the 
first union of the will with the intellect. It turns the 
chaos of sense-impressions into a system by connecting 
them about a focus arbitrarily chosen. 

Intellectual training begins with the habit of atten- 
tion. In this activity will and intellect are conjoined. The 
mind in this exercises its first self-determination. It says 
to the play of sense and idle fancy: Stop, and obey me; 
neglect that, and notice this. The infinitely manifold ob- 
jects always present before the senses vanish, and one ob- 
ject engrosses the mind. This is the sine qua non of intel- 
lectual culture. All the grades of intellectual power that 
follow are successive stages of strength to concentrate 
the mind, and exclude extraneous objects. Hence atten- 
tion becomes analysis, and this deepens to reflection, or 
the perception of other objects implied in the one before 
the mind. Continued analysis discerns in the isolated 
object the influence of other objects, and hence its (the 
object's) relativity, its connection and interdependence with 
other things; and this is properly named reflection, be- 
cause it is the discovery of the object in what seemed 
extraneous to it — namely, the discovery of the being of 
its object in the being of the environment. Reflection is 
(etymologically) a bending back of the mind, and in the 
discovery of essential relations one finds in what is out- 
side of or beyond the object that which bends him back 
to the object which he started with. 



THE WILL AND THE INTELLECT. 239 

§ 165. Attention gathers, one after the other, the 
sense-impressions that proceed from the particular ob- 
ject, and it discriminates these; and by this dis- 
crimination it separates the object from other objects 
and defines it. Hence the first product of attention 
is analysis, and we may therefore call analysis the 
second product of the union of the will and the intel- 
lect. All specialization of the attention is analysis. 
By analysis the sense-impressions are properly grouped 
and carefully discriminated, and through them the 
object is defined. Continued analysis discerns in the 
isolated object the influence of other objects and its 
influence on them. To recapitulate: The object is 
isolated by attention; analysis discriminates and de- 
fines its properties and qualities. Analysis is com- 
posed of repeated acts of attention. The will isolates 
the object and excludes others from it; then again 
it selects a portion of this object for its minuter at- 
tention, excluding the rest of the object; again and 
again narrowing its attention down to more and more 
limited fields of observation, it approaches the sim- 
plest elements. Such is analysis. But in taking ac- 
count of the simplest elements of the object, it dis- 
covers its (the object's) complication with other ob- 
jects. It notes the reaction of other objects upon the 
object it has chosen for its attention; it notes evi- 



240 PSYCHOLOGIC SYSTEM. 

dences within the object of reaction upon other ob- 
jects. It thus traces the object into its unity with 
other objects. Hence the result of repeated analysis 
is synthesis. It appears that we have analysis as the 
result of repeated acts of attention, and that we have 
synthesis as the result of repeated acts of analysis. 

The activity which we have defined as reflection is 
therefore the ultimatum of analysis and the beginning of 
synthesis. The mind, analyzing, abstracts and isolates, 
but at length discovers the relativity of the isolated ob- 
ject, and finds reflected in it other objects, and, thus syn- 
thesizing, it comes to define the isolated object as a bundle 
of relations to the rest of the universe. Attention, analy- 
sis, and reflection result in generalization, because they 
discover community of being between the object and its 
environment. These stages of reflection, analysis and syn- 
thesis, belong to the understanding. Perception deals with 
isolated properties; the understanding with abstractions 
and relations, the realm of relativity; the reason deals 
with totalities or wholes. 

§ 166. Synthesis, then, is the discovery of con- 
nections, of reciprocal actions, of the action of the 
object upon other objects, and of the reaction in turn 
of these objects upon it. Synthesis, then, results in 
the discovery of relativity — a system of relations 
which connect the object with other objects. The con- 
tinuation of this process is called reflection. Reflec- 
tion consists of analysis and synthesis — the descent to 
the elements and the ascent to the complex inter- 
relations which form the constitution of the object. 



THE WILL AND THE INTELLECT. 241 

Here I use analysis and synthesis only in their appli- 
cation to objects of experience. This activity of re- 
flection and of its separate elements of analysis and 
synthesis is called the understanding. 

Naming- these in a different way, we can say that these 
are the potencies of the mind, the first potence being* at- 
tention simple; the second potence being" analysis; the 
third potence synthesis; the fourth potence reflection. 
Still further, if we reg-ard the essential personality as 
will power, we can describe the various stag-es of growth 
thus far considered as the directing of the will or person- 
ality upon its intellect, overcoming its passivity, and di- 
recting it actively toward the mastery of the world. In 
this study the transition from mere attention to the stage 
of analysis is involved. Analysis is attention, but carried 
to a higher power. Attention simple should be the con- 
centration of the activity of the mind on an object. Analy- 
sis concentrates the activity on the results of attention, 
and is thus in a certain sense self-related, for herein atten- 
tion notices itself — it uses itself as an instrument. Again, 
in reflection, as synthesis, self-activity concentrates on the 
results of its own work in the sta^e of analysis; it per- 
ceives relations, and thus retraces its analysis, and connects 
the object with the elements that were excluded in the 
first act of attention (hence reflection is a self-activity 
twice self-related). There are two kinds of attention: 
that which relates to the environment, and that which 
follows a process of thought; the former is critical alert- 
ness and the latter absorption; these are opposite and 
mutually exclusive. The former kind of attention is spoken 
of here. 

§ 167. There is another step of the intellect above 
that of reflection just described. We may call it in- 
sight, or philosophic knowing. Just as each of the 



242 PSYCHOLOGIC SYSTEM. 

other stages of knowing arises from tHe persistent 
and systematic use of the lower orders of knowing 
by the w^ill, so the highest, or insight, arises from 
the systematic use of reflection through the wilL Re- 
flection follows out relations of dependence, and ac- 
knowledges relativity as its highest category. Its 
doctrine is that each thing depends on everything 
else. It holds that all knowledge is relative because 
all things are relative, existing in a system of mutual 
dependence. The final result of this process of re- 
flection is to reach a whole of mutually dependent 
beings. This is evident if one considers that, when 
reflection arrives at the conclusion that dependence 
is everywhere present among things, it is able to state 
its principle in a universal form; and hence it now 
has before it a whole — to it there is one system of 
interdependent things in time and space. This is the 
summit of the understanding. But now it becomes 
possible to discern some facts regarding the whole as 
a whole. This order of knowing is called reason by 
some psychologists. For illustration of the character 
of its knowledge, take as an instance, first, the insight 
that the whole can not be dependent on another whole. 
The whole must be independent. Second, it follows 
that the whole must be self-active, because it can not 
by any possibility receive its attributes and properties 



THE WILL AND THE INTELLECT. 243 

from another; and, on the other hand, it must origi- 
nate activity within itself, because there is within it 
a constant process of dependence and interrelation, 
causing changes or metamorphoses of integration and 
disintegration. 

This predicate of self-activity, applied to the whole, 
is the most important conclusion reached in this higher 
kind of knowing". It is very important to get this clear. 
And yet it must be noted as a fact that the scientific stage 
of mind, which may be called the analytic and synthetic 
or reflective stage, holds itself back determinedly from 
thinking the totality. It inhibits that thought. Those, on 
the other hand, who reach this thought of the self-activity 
of a total have definitely adopted the method of philo- 
sophical thinking. 

§ 168. The following review of the points named 
will assist in making clear the necessity of this in- 
sight into self-activity. Interrelation or dependence 
among all objects in time and space necessarily im- 
plies the unity of the whole. The whole is one being. 
Destroy any portion of it, and you change all the 
constituent parts by shutting out a portion of influence 
that exercised an effect upon these. Secondly, bear- 
ing in mind that the whole is not dependent upon any- 
thing else, one may see that it is essentially the origi- 
nator of the movement of action and interaction going 
on between the beings which compose this whole. 

If one should attempt to avoid this by supposing that 
simple mechanical interaction, a sort of persistent motion 



244: PSYCHOLOGIC SYSTEM. 

or persistent force, is constant and eternally active within 
the whole, then consideration must be invited to the char- 
acter of this kind of perpetual motion. Any force, as we 
know it, is a running down of some tension that has been 
wound up. Any force is therefore essentially dependent 
upon an opposite force. The correlation of forces there- 
fore as a whole has the form of a series in which the run- 
ning down of the first force (the same being transmitted 
to each successive member of the series) finally winds up 
the last force into action, and that one winds up the first. 
It is a contrivance of such a kind that the running down 
of a force effects its own winding up, although through 
a long series of other forces. Now such a thought as this is 
absurd from the standpoint of a relativist, and he ridi- 
cules the theory by telling the story of the man who took 
hold of the straps of his boots and lifted himself over a 
fence. He sees clearly that perpetual motion is impossible 
from a mechanical point of view. He does not see, however, 
that for this very reason all mechanical motion must have 
arisen in a will-force. But it is an admission, neverthe- 
less, of self-activity as the principle of the whole. Self- 
activity can always reproduce a new tension of force — 
that is to say, it can forever wind up its tension when 
collapsed. The doctrine of correlation of forces therefore 
has (coiled up in it as an implication) the idea of self- 
activity to make it possible. Hence the stage of knowing 
which deals with the nature of a whole regards self-activ- 
ity as the principle of explanation, if it is logically con- 
sistent. 

§ 169. To recapitulate briefly, tlie will unites with 
the intellect to produce attention, analysis, synthesis, 
reflection, and insight. We have sufiiciently discussed 
the necessity of the will to the first three of these 
activities. It is obvious enough without further dis- 
cussion that reflection is possible only by holding back 



THE WILL AND THE INTELLECT. 245 

through the will the mind from the action of im- 
pressions upon the senses. It inhibits direct sense- 
perception, and confines itself to the analyzing and 
combining of past sense-perceptions recalled by the 
memory. But the action of the Vv'ill upon the intel- 
lect is most manifest in that order of knowing to which 
we have above given the name '^ insight." The in- 
hibition of the lower and relatively passive orders 
of knowing by the will is here most complete and 
thoroughgoing, for the will drops the entire field of 
experience, together with its data of sense-perceptions, 
out of sight, and commences from the other extreme 
of the orders of being. It inquires what must be 
the nature of a whole or total, and finds the cate- 
gories of independence and self-activity. It uses 
these, and applies them to the contents of experience 
as ultimate explanations. 

Our division here, whether into three, four, five, or 
six steps, is somev^^hat arbitrary. Three is, on the whole, 
most convenient, and is used in Chapter IV. In Chap- 
ter XXVII we have subdivided the second step, the under- 
standing", into common sense and reflection; also the stag"e 
of sense-perception is divided into that of mere impres- 
sions which are represented in feeling- and that of per- 
ceiving" objects as members of classes. Here we base our 
classification on the will. First we note simple passive 
reception of impressions without the action of the will; 
second, the first direction of the intellect by the will, pro- 
ducing- attention; third, the second action of the will, 
using attention repeatedly and guiding its successive acts 



246 PSYCHOLOGIC SYSTEM. 

-^analysis; fourth, the third intention of the will, which, 
through analysis, discovers relations to other objects or 
being's, and thus discovers relativity or the relation of 
dependence upon other thing-s. This last is called syn- 
thesis. The g-eneral name, reflection, is g"iven for the union 
of synthesis and analysis, and this is our fifth step; each 
being- used to j)roduce its opposite— analysis to discover 
community of the object with other objects (which is 
synthesis), and synthesis to discover the necessity of a 
series of objects to realize the entire being- of the object; 
as, for instance, the synthetic process of the life of the oak 
requires the analytic stages of the isolated acorn, sapling, 
tree, leaves, blossoms, and a crop of acorns. Up to this 
point we have traced the orders of knowing from the 
simplest sense-perception up to the highest scientific 
knowing. There is a sixth order of knowing, which con- 
siders the action of independent beings or wholes and 
formulates the necessary truths concerning the totalitj^ of 
relative beings which belong within it. We may note that 
the steps called attention, analysis, synthesis, and reflec- 
tion all belong to what we have called reflection in Chap- 
ter XXVII, or the second stage of knowing in Chapter 
IV. Aristotle includes all these four steps under discursive 
thinking {5idpoia). But he also includes all these, and the 
imagination, memory, and sense-perception, under the pas- 
sive reason {t/ovs iradrjriKSs). To the passive reason Aristotle 
opposes the active reason (vovs iroi-nriKSs), including under 
this what we have called insight. He calls this elsewhere 
6eccp€7y. Thus we may have only two steps, the first one in- 
cluding the first five steps and the second the sixth step. It 
is important that the student shall see that all these steps 
are real, and that he may discern still other phases which 
may function separately, but that he may group them all 
in three, or even in two, classes of activity. 

§ 170. The most important thing to be noticed in 
the theory here presented is, that the will as a self- 
determining power, uniting itself with the intellect 



THE WILL AND THE INTELLECT. 247 

in the ascending series of attention, analysis, syn- 
thesis, reflection, and insight, approaches at each step 
nearer and nearer to an adequate knowledge of itself. 
In fact, insight, the completest order of knowing, may 
be said to have as its object pure will; for a self- 
active whole is precisely a will. Hence insight is self- 
consciousness in the full meaning of that term, for 
the self as will perceives will, or a self, as the funda- 
mental being and final explanation of things. It is 
only this kind of knowing (which may be called the- 
istic knowing) that can recognise truly what is in- 
volved in freedom and responsibility. The lower 
order of knowing, here named reflection, which deals 
with analysis and synthesis, and arrives at nothing 
beyond universal relativity, can not consistently admit 
the idea of freedom or responsibility. It does not 
entertain the idea of a whole or a self-active being, 
and hence can not conceive of such a thing as will. 

Science may ascertain that a thing- is, and expound 
its interrelations with other beings, but philosophy and 
theology have not explained an object until they have 
shown its place in the purposing- will of the Absolute First 
Principle, or God — that is to say, philosophic knowing be- 
gins with the highest presupposition of a being-, and not 
with its immediate presentation to the senses. Science 
thus proceeds from the incomplete to the more complete 
and toward the absolute, while philosophy and theology 
proceed from the complete toward the incomplete, follow- 
ing the creative purpose. 



24:8 PSYCHOLOGIC SYSTEM. 

§ 171. We have seen already, in Chapter XXVI, 
that feeling may be considered as the embryonic form 
of both will and intellect. On the side of desire, 
feeling moves toward the will; on the side of sensu- 
ous impressions, feeling relates itself to intellect. It 
is evident that feeling can not be educated directly 
in itself, but only mediately through the intellect 
and the will. The will is trained by forming habits; 
the intellect is trained by developing higher orders 
of knowing. When a habit is formed, and a theo- 
retical view is reached by the intellect which corre- 
sponds to that habit, it will happen soon that feeling 
will come to contain the contents of the willing and 
knowing in the form of immediate impulse or uncon- 
scious tendency. Therefore the feeling can be culti- 
vated, and is cultivated, in fact, by producing the 
growth and development of the intellect and will. 

§ 172. This progressive series of stages of know- 
ing, arising from the action of the will upon the intel- 
lect, would at first be supposed to lead away from real- 
ity toward abstraction; or, in other words, from the 
concrete to the abstract. But, in fact, it is otherwise. 
The higher members of the series of knowing are 
more adequate, and reach the concrete truth, while 
that kind of knowing which merely knows impres- 
sions, without taking cognizance of relations, is an 



THE WILL AND THE INTELLECT. 249 

abstract knowing, because it deals with mere depend- 
ent things, properties, and qualities, without seizing 
them in their true relations, whereas the reflective 
knowing seizes things in their causal relations, which 
make them possible and sustain them in being (com- 
pare § 158). It is a more concrete kind of know- 
ing, therefore. But the kind of knowing which I 
call insight {deaypelv^ — which explains the dependent 
things by the independent whole — is philosophic or 
theologic knowing. Its aim when realized enables 
one to see each thing in God's final purpose in the 
universe. Hence what we call insight, or the know- 
ing of the Reason, deals with moral purposes. 

§ 173. It is true that the psychological theory of 
these kinds of knowing is apart from and unnecessary 
to the realization of the kinds of knowing themselves. 
That is to say, a person may be engaged in analysis 
without knowing that it is analysis, and without any 
special information regarding the nature of analysis. 
Physiology and hygiene give one an insight into the 
processes of digestion and respiration, but are not 
necessary for the performance of those functions. One 
breathes and digests quite as well without a scientific 
knowledge of the nature of the process; but such 
scientific knowledge is indispensable to the patholo- 
gist. So, too, one pays attention, analyzes, reflects, 



250 PSYCHOLOGIC SYSTEM. 

and reasons without knowing scientifically what is in- 
volved in such acts; but the science of psychology 
is necessary for settling all questions of educational 
criticism. To see the complexity of the physiological 
process of digestion or breathing astonishes us. Still 
more does it astonish the psychologist when he for the 
first time traces out the complexity of the most ordi- 
nary mental processes. The accumulation of one act 
upon another, each higher one acting upon a lower 
one, is a continued process of involution which seems 
at first wholly incomprehensible. But complete self- 
knowledge implies this knowledge of mental pro- 
cesses. 

Psychology explains; it does not make. To explain 
the purposive movements of life is not to say that these 
are conscious. The actions of a plant indicate the adapta- 
tion of means to end, but not a conscious adaptation. So 
the greater part of the movements of animals are pur- 
posive, but not conscious. The animal does not reflect 
upon them. It is a shallow^, first thought of the reader of 
psychology to suppose that his author undertakes to give 
an account only of conscious processes. Fichte was the 
first among thinkers to trace out these subtle evolutions, 
and his works form the classics of psychology, defective 
though they are in ontology. Attention to an object, 
analysis of its properties, reflection upon its relation to 
other things, are very ordinary intellectual activities, but 
they differ widely in significance. The lower activity 
never comprehends the higher; it is limited, but knows 
not its limit. Things seem to it impossible which are per- 
fectly easy to the stages of thinking above it. 



THIKD PAET. 

PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 
251 



19 



THIRD PART. 

PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 

§ 174. In Part I of this volume the method of 
psychology has been illustrated by various inquiries 
based on introspection. In Part II the intellect and 
the will are examined in the light of the principle of 
self -activity, and a genetic deduction attempted of the 
higher activities from the lower activities or facul- 
ties of the mind. 

A genetic deduction derives the later forms from the 
inherent growth of the earlier forms. The earlier forms 
are found to have certain constructive activities, which 
through their own changes will result in the later forms. 
By this the later forms are explained and the earlier forms 
are better understood, inasmuch as their destination and 
goal are revealed. 

§ 175. In Part III an application of psychology 
will be made to solve the most important of the 
live problems of education. All human activities 
have a psychologic side. There is a mental coefficient 
to each (see § 8). What the mental action or re- 
action may be, and what its ultimate effect may be 

on itself, must be demanded by pedagogy in regard 

253 



254 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 

to each act and eacli situation of the sonl; for it is 
the chief concern in pedagogy to inquire into the 
educative factor of the doings and sufferings of hu- 
manity. Hence in this last part of the book I in- 
quire into the psychologic foundations (1) of society 
and its institutions, and of reactions against them; 
(2) of the national ideas that have successively ap- 
peared in the world history; (3 and 4) of art and re- 
ligion and their history; (5 and 6) of science and 
philosophy; finally, of the school, (7) its course of 
study, (8) its division of the curriculum into ele- 
mentary, secondary, and higher education. 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

The Psychology of Social Science. 

§ 176. As a mere individual, isolated from the 
community, man can not ascend above savagery. 
What small portion of the earth and the heavens a 
mere individual can apprehend with his unaided five 
senses is only sufficient to bewilder him with prob- 
lems. He can not attain to any solution of them. 
It is only when man comes to avail himself of the 
aggregate observations of mankind that he is placed 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SOCIAL SCIENCE. 255 

in a position to get an inventory of the world of 
some value. What one individual can not do, the 
organized labour of mankind can do — continuous as 
it is through space and time — handing from one gen- 
eration to the next, sacredly preserving the heritage 
of experience, and adding to it the small accretions 
of discovery made from time to time by the constitu- 
ent members. Man, as an individual, is an insignifi- 
cant affair; as social whole he constitutes a living 
miracle. By participation the individual is enabled 
to re-enforce himself with the sense-perceptions of 
all, the thoughts and reflections of all, the life ex- 
perience of all. He reaps what others sow, he avails 
himself of the lives of others without having to pay 
the heavy price of first experience. All the mistakes 
made by others enter as so much positive experience, 
and are bequeathed as so much wisdom by the race 
to each individual. He is saved the trouble of trying, 
over again what has been found to be error, and hence 
is saved also the pain which comes from it. 

Human society is founded on the deep mystery of 
vicarious atonement which is announced in the creeds of 
Christendom. The social whole suffers for the first cost 
of its experience, dividing" up the pain among" the myriads 
of human beings who contribute this experience. But it 
delivers its entire lesson to each new^ person who comes 
into the world without the necessity of his living" over 
again the life of toil and pain which has furnished the 



256 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 

lesson. The race thus lives vicariously for the individual, 
and it is this vicarious living of all for each and of each 
for all, made possible by the institutions w^hich form the 
netvs^ork of society, that makes human nature divine. 

(a) Man is not only an animal having bodily wants 
of food, clothing, and shelter, but he is a spiritual beir^g 
existing in opposition to Nature. Man, as a child or a 
savage, is an incarnate contradiction; his real being is 
the opposite of his ideal being. His actual condition does 
not conform to his true nature. His true human nature 
is Eeason; his actual condition is irrational, for it is con- 
strained from without, chained by brute necessity, and 
lashed by the scourges of aj^petite and passion. Thus 
there is a paradoxical contrast between Nature and human 
nature; between Nature as spread out in time and space- 
existing in mineral, vegetable, and animal — and human 
nature, or realized reason. Nature in time and space con- 
sists of beings limited by each other, and not of self- 
limited beings. Thus fate everywhere prevails in Nature, 
and each natural thing is constrained by its circumstances, 
and can not change itself, can not realize an ideal of its 
own — in fact, has no ideal and is no self. Man, as he 
begins his career, is such a natural being. His human 
nature is then only a possibility to him. Human nature 
must be made by the activity of man in order to exist. 

(6) As man ascends out of Nature in time and space 
into human nature, he ascends into a realm of his own 
creation, and therefore into a realm of freedom. The 
world of material nature is not self-limited. The chief 
attribute of matter is exclusiveness. Impenetrability is 
an essential quality of it. Two bodies can not occupy the 
same place, nor can one body occupy two places. Hence 
the material necessities of life — food, clothing, and shelter 
— are essentially brute necessities, having selfishness or 
exclusiveness as their basis. The food, clothing, or shel- 
ter appropriated by one human being can not be likewise 
appropriated by another at the same time. If participa- 
tion exists in regard to material supplies, it exists through 
division and diminution of shares. But it is the opposite 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SOCIAL SCIENCE. 257 

of this in spiritual things, in things of the mind. Spiritual 
blessings always increase by being shared. In fact, they 
do not exist except in and through participation. It is 
through combination of man with man that the individual 
is able to achieve a rational existence. By combination 
each one is able to participate in the life of every other, 
forming a vast organism of institutions called human 
society, wherein each helps all and all help each. 

§ 177. The only possibility of amelioration for 
the natural man lies in the principle of combination. 
The individual must feel or perceive a common in- 
terest with other individuals. He must adopt for his 
own ideal the ideal of others. Then dropping his ex- 
clusiveness, he works for others, and through others 
for himself. He learns to recognise his own essen- 
tial aims and purposes in those of others, and more 
and more to make a common ideal the object of his 
strivings and endeavours. Through this process arise 
the institutions of civilization — the family, civil so- 
ciety, the state. 

These institutions are the secular forms of combina- 
tion, and are the direct means by which man, the animal, 
is freed from his naturalness and the thraldom consequent 
upon his wants and necessities. Coincident with the de- 
velopment of these institutions of civilization, and in re- 
ciprocal interaction with the same, arise three other forms 
of combination — aesthetic art, religion, and science. These 
are spiritual modes of combination, while the former are 
secular. The visible Church is the institution in which 
religion is realized. The invisible Church contains also 
art and literature, and also philosophy and science — the 



258 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 

entire realm of the true, the beautiful, and the good. 
While the secular institutions serve to provide man with 
food, clothing-, and shelter, and to protect and defend him 
against physical violence and suffering, the spiritual com- 
binations have for their end the evolution of man's abso- 
lute ideal and the elevation of the natural individual into 
such participation in the life of the social whole that he 
achieves independence of the temporal and finite and comes 
to live a divine life. 



§ 178. In the first province of the secular — the 
family — natural affection seems to be the strongest 
tie, and one might instance examples from the animal 
kingdom to prove that mere instinct is sufficient to 
found the family. In like manner ants and bees could 
be cited as furnishing examples of civil society and 
the state founded on mere natural impulse. Civil so- 
ciety would seem to be founded on greed or selfish 
desire. But the realm of instinct or mere natural 
feeling does not include the ethical element, al- 
though that element must be regarded as essential to 
all human institutions. In fact, the forms of spiritual 
combination — art, religion, and science — are to be 
looked upon as underlying and conditioning even the 
secular institutions of man. The higher is the neces- 
sary condition for the existence of the lower; no 
unconscious nature without an absolute, self-con- 
scious, personal cause; no human institutions with- 
out insight or wisdom, the primitive form of all sci- 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SOCIAL SCIENCE. 259 

ence. Wisdom is the insight into the ideal of man, 
the totality of his potential nature and the ideal laws 
which govern its realization. 

Thus while the secular forms of combination are nega- 
tive in the sense that they provide merely food, clothing*, 
and shelter, the spiritual forms of combination are posi- 
tive in that they concern immediately the v^^orld of rational 
intelligence. The secular institutions likew^ise indirectly 
but necessarily have a function in the spiritual growth of 
man, especially in that they introduce mediation every- 
where between the direct animal appetite and its grati- 
fication (that is to say, separating the appetite from its 
food by a process of labour for others). In civil society 
each man is given a special vocation. In this he must toil 
not directly for himself, but to produce commodities for 
society, receiving in return for his labour not the goods 
he wishes to consume, but only money — the general sym- 
bol of social obligation, the general solvent of property. 
His own wants are in turn to be supplied through the 
labours of other individuals in the social whole, which he 
procures for money. Thus, while he offers in exchange an 
amount of labour which, if applied directly for himself, 
would afford him a pitiful subsistenqe, yet by devoting it 
to others he secures access to the rich stores of human 
society, and cotton, silk and linen, tea, coffee and sugar, 
wheat, corn and spices, coal, wood and iron — whatever of 
luxuries or comforts that go to feed and clothe, protect 
and shelter man, are collected for him from all parts of 
the world. His animal wants are more than gratified, and 
yet the animal semblance of this gratification has been so 
completely removed — eliminated by the social alembic of 
combination — that even the most avaricious and grasping 
of our human fellows clothes his endeavours with the ap- 
pearance of devoted solicitude for the welfare of his neigh- 
bours and for society in general, for he labours early and 
late to produce the commodities wanted by his fellows. 
In proportion to the perfection of the institution of civil 



260 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 

society this direct serving- of others becomes more con- 
scious, cultivates wdth greater effect the humane senti- 
ments of the individual, and binds him closer to the gen- 
eral mass. 

§ 179. Civil society is distinguished from the 
state through this: While it is a social combination 
like the state^ it does not exercise directive power upon 
the individual, and assume the functions of a will- 
power like him. But the state always assumes the 
control of the individual for the benefit of the social 
unit. Against this social unit he has no substantial 
existence. In civil society, on the other hand, an 
organization is formed which seems to be for the 
individual, and not for itself, like the state. The 
most important phase of civil society is its organiza- 
tion of the industry of man in the form of division of 
labour. Civil society seems to be an organization 
of the social unit for the use of the individual, while 
the state is the social unit in which the individual 
exists not for himself, but for the use of that unit, 
the state. In civil society the whole exists for each; 
in the state each exists for the whole. 

§ 180. The state sifts out from man his selfish- 
ness and naturalness more effectually than the family 
or civil society. Against the greed and cruelty of 
animal passions it is indeed, as Hobbes called it, '^ the ' 
leviathan," or constraining might which subdues 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SOCIAL SCIENCE. 261 

brutal impulse in order that the rational may hold 
sway. The state organizes the world of human pas- 
sions and desires, of human arbitrariness and caprice, 
into a temple of justice wherein the fragmentary will 
of each individual is pieced out and complemented by 
the organic will of the whole community, and thus 
made to reflect the divine will. It organizes human 
combination with the idea of justice as its supreme 
principle. 

Justice implies responsibility or free will, and under- 
takes to return to each actor the fruition of his deed. If 
his deed is rational, he shall not be deprived of its bene- 
fits through the violence of others; if he conspires against 
the freedom of others, his deed shall still be his own, al- 
though its return upon him may place him behind prison 
bars or even deprive him of his life. The state is the 
highest realization of the ideal of man in the secular 
world. It sets up the principle of responsibility or pure 
freedom, and this is the absolute ideal of man. It how- 
ever remains purely secular in this, that it confines its 
cognizance to overt acts, and does' not penetrate within 
the sacred circle of personality to take account of the 
subjective realization of the absolute ideal. It leaves this 
to conscience and the Church. It would be impossible for 
the state to retain the principle of justice as its standard 
and still attempt to enter the province of the private will 
except where that will has externalized itself in overt 
acts; for it presupposes freedom and responsibility, or else 
it could not punish. It says to the criminal: "Your deed 
is your own; take its consequences upon yourself." Con- 
viction, opinion, thought, so Ipng as unuttered, do not 
belong to the secular world, can not be arraigned by a 
secular power without a confusion which would destroy 
the secular world altogether. The state maj^ return only 



262 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 

his deed on the doer. What has not yet become a deed, 
but remains only a thought, is not yet sent out or ex- 
ternalized, and hence can not be returned. 



§ 181. In the institution of the Church man essays 
to actualize in himself a reconciliation of his being 
with the divine ideal. Worship and sacrifice consti- 
tute the two essential elements of religion. In de- 
votion or worship the soul concentrates itself upon 
the infinite and eternal ideal — the Absolute Person — 
and refuses to occupy itself with the particular con- 
cerns of life. Whether it is in joy or sorrow, success 
or misfortune, it is all the same; with its one privi- 
lege of communion with God all finite, secular things 
are as naught. Worship is the negative act of the 
religious intellect, annulling the world in the presence 
of the Absolute; sacrifice is the negative act of the 
religious will: the soul practically accomplishes in 
this what it theoretically acknowledges in the form 
of worship. That the soul, even when immersed in 
the distracting cares of the secular, or when its ideal 
is obscured by ignorance and superstition, still is 
capable of union with its ideal through sacrifice and 
worship, is the momentous reality which religion in- 
volves. Its doctrine of » the True Personality — that 
it, because it is universal, involves the recognition 
of itself in others (as expressed in the symbol of the 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SOCIAL SCIENCE. 263 

Trinity) — is the central light of theology, and the 
same doctrine in scientific form is to be regarded as 
the first principle of speculative philosophy. 

The great fundamental truth which has come out of 
social science is that of the serial nature of man's self. 
He is not simply a single self, as individual, nor is his race 
only a vast number of individual selves; but as individual he 
is one self, and then he exists in a series of selves ascend- 
ing above him, each one a higher revelation of the nature 
of his self— a more complete realization of his ideal self. 
There is, besides the individual, the first self above him 
in the shape of the family to which he belongs. He is 
member of this higher self, and also, at the same time, one 
of its conscious centres; for in these higher selves the in- 
dividual is not only a part, but he is at the same time the 
whole. This, indeed, to some extent is true of the hum- 
blest individual in society. Above the family there is the 
larger self of the community in which the individual lives. 
It is an industrial and civil unit. In this unit he is still 
more striking'ly a subordinate member, a co-operating link; 
and, besides this, a more complete individual, a more per- 
fect, self-determining being. In the state, in the Church, 
the individual finds new selves. To know one's self, then, 
means to know also society; to know not only the par- 
ticular individual self which I am, but my universal self, 
realized above me in a series of vast colossal forms. To 
rise into higher selves, and to know himself in these higher 
selves, is the destination of man. 



264 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 

CHAPTEK XXXII. 

The Institutio7is that educate, 

§ 182. Each of these cardinal institutions exer- 
cises on the member of society its peculiar education. 
It forms his mind through action and reaction. This 
fivefold form of education (counting the school as a 
separate institution) begins with man as an infant — 
a mere animal with no spiritual growth as jet, but 
with the possib,ility of infinite unfolding and achieve- 
ment of the spiritual attributes of intellect, will-power, 
and affections. 

The first stage of this educative process we call that 
of nurture. It lasts from birth to the age of five or six 
years, and is the education v^^hich the family gives the 
child. The parents and other relatives of the child during 
this period impress on him his first lessons in human life. 
He learns obedience and courtesy toward his elders and 
superiors, personal habits relative to taking food, sleeping, 
recreation, cleanliness of clothing and person, the sense 
of shame, some degree of self-control and of consideration 
for others, and, above all, the use of his mother tongue. 
He learns to symbolize to some extent the life of the fam- 
ily, as far as he sees it, by means of the activity of play. 
His playthings are imitations, repetitions in miniature, of 
the objects with which the serious occupations of life are 
carried on by his elders; whether dolls with their outfits of 
cradles, carriages, culinary and laundry utensils; whether 
hobby-horses, water-wheels, dog-carts, miniature boxes of 
tools, or the more general games (less imitative and more 



THE INSTITUTIONS THAT EDUCATE. 265 

deeply symbolic) with which he engages in later years 
of childhood. 

§ 183. When the child outgrows the narrow cir- 
cle of family life and comes to the period where his 
interest centres on learning the ways of society out- 
side of the family, its occupations and its forms of 
combination in the industries, and its means of inter- 
communication, then conies the period of the school, 
whose object is to initiate him into the technicalities 
of intercommunication with his fellow-men, and to 
familiarize him with the ideas that underlie his civi- 
lization, and which he must use as tools of thought 
if he would observe and understand the phases of 
human life around him; for these phases of human 
life — all that relate to human institutions, all that 
relate to the science of society, and to the moral 
structure of civilization — are invisible to the human 
being who has not the aid of elementary ideas with 
which to see them. 

The infant and the savage do not and can not see 
social relations: they can see only things, but not rela- 
tions; they can not see forces, powers, processes, institu- 
tions, but only the dead results of such activities, and 
consequently they do not know of any whence and whither 
with which to explain the ichat that is before them. The 
school performs a very important function when it pro- 
vides a knowledge of the technics of intercommunication, 
and makes familiar the elementary ideas of human institu- 
tions. 



266 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 

§ 184. After the school comes the education of 
one's special vocation. The business pursuit, be it 
trade or profession, is an education in which the in- 
dividual man learns to limit himself to a narrow 
sphere of activity, so that thereby he can gain skill 
of production; and with this he learns to depend on 
his fellow-man for the supply of his many wants 
through exchange. He contributes the products of 
his own industry to the market of the world, and re- 
ceives in return a share in all the productions col- 
lected for redistribution in that great market. 

The dependence of the particular individual upon his 
race, and the reciprocal participation of each in the pro- 
ductions of the labour of all, are the g-reat lesson of one's 
vocation in life. By the division of labour, the mere selfish- 
ness of man, as an animal or brute, is sifted out, and he 
does not take the food, clothing-, and shelter for the grati- 
fication of his wants directly from Nature, but indirectly 
through the mediation of society; he gets them from his 
fellows-men, purchasing them in the market of the w^orld. 
So wshat he uses involves this transaction with his fellows, 
wherein all parties are free agents, and the deed is one of 
courtesy rather than of compulsion or of animal greed. 
By the division of labour the productivity of man is so 
much increased that the civilized man goes well clothed, 
housed, and fed, and educated; while the savage or the 
wild man, who is his own food-provider, his own tailor 
and shoemaker, his own mason and carpenter, goes house- 
less and naked, and at times is half starved, and never 
fed with a palatable variety. 

§ 185. The influence of the constitution of the 
state, and of its transactions with other states in peace 



THE INSTITUTIONS THAT EDUCATE. 267 

and war, weaving the web of world history, is known 

to be more powerful in educating the individual and 

in forming his character than any of the three phases 

of education mentioned, for it underlies them and 

makes possible whatever perfection they may have. 

Without the protection of the state no institution can 

flourish, nothing above savage or barbarous human 

life can be realized. 

In a despotic state, the family life, the school life, and 
the life of society are capable only of arrested growth, 
and they remain of necessity in their first rudimentary 
stages. In a free nation, governed by a written constitu- 
tion, those subordinate forms may unfold into complete- 
ness of development. The state is the essential condition 
for history; history deals with states and nations, and not 
with mere individuals. History commences with the evo- 
lution of man's substantial self and its realization or em- 
bodiment in a state. The ideal even of the most despotic 
state or the most rudimental form of the state, as well 
as the freest and most perfect state, is that of justice. 
The state exists in order that the deed of the citizen may 
be returned to him in kind, and thereby that he realize 
self-determination and freedom. Responsibility to the will 
of the state is the great reality which educates the citizen, 
and in whose presence he becomes ever more conscious 
of the reflection of his own deed, returning upon himself 
from society to bless or curse him, according to its nature 
as he sent it forth, a good deed or a deed of malice. 

§ 186. In the presence of the state the individual 

feels that he has entered a different relation from 

that which he holds to the world of industry and 

the division of labour. 
20 



268 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 

While in his vocation or special business (art, pro- 
fession, or trade) each individual is served by the entire 
world of productive industry, and he commands for his 
own productions a share in the total product of the labour 
of man in every clime under the sun, and it comes to pass 
that the organization of society seems to exist solely for 
the comfort and enjoyment of the individual; on the other 
hand, in the state the citizen comes to recognise his re- 
sponsibility to a higher self, and to feel his utter lack of 
substantiality as compared with it. To his substance as 
it exists realized in this higher self in the state he must 
yield ready obedience, and be at all times willing to sacri- 
fice for it his wealth and possessions, and even his very 
life itself— the sacrifice of the unsubstantial self for the 
substantial self. Thus the state educates the citizen into 
a higher realization of human selfhood or personality than 
he has learned in the family and civil society. 

§ 187. Neither property nor individual life in tlie 
body is essential to the existence of the human soul; 
and it is this higher substantiality of the individual as 
immortal soul, responsible to a Personal God, which 
transcends the state and all subordinate institutions. 
This higher substantiality is taught to man in the 
fifth form of education — that which man receives 
through the spiritual institutions growing from art, 
religion, and science, and especially through the in- 
stitution of the Chvirch, which makes them possible. 
In the education of religion man learns to know him- 
self as a being that transcends Nature in all its forms 
— even the highest form of Nature, which is that of 
organic life. He comes to realize the infinite char- 



THE INSTITUTIONS THAT EDUCATE. 269 

acter of his will and its acts, of his intellect and the 
truth it cognizes, of his affections and their Supreme 
Personal object. Theology as enunciated by the 
Church expounds the fundamental ideas which un- 
derlie the w^hole life of man; and therefore it hap- 
pens that the form of religion confessed by a people 
is all-important in determining the degree of develop- 
ment of each and every other form of education, 
whether of the state, of social economy, of the school, 
or of the family nurture. 

In the development of the consequences of a religious 
principle, or of any general principles, it does not signify 
whether this or that person is conscious of it. Few are 
conscious of principles, theoretically — i. e., few^ see all or 
even many of the logical results that follow their applica- 
tion — but each one touches its application on some one 
side of it, and on the whole the nation or people will in a 
series of years draw out of a dogma every one of its im- 
plied conclusions. If the absolute is held to be an uncon- 
scious unity, all particular individuality, all immortality 
for particular men, and all freedom of political institu- 
tions, will ultimately go to the ground among the people 
whose priesthood hold that doctrine. If the absolute is 
held to be a conscious person, quite a different history 
will result, and everything will be favourable to the de- 
velopment of the individual, through education, into the 
type or image of the absolute self-conscious person. 



270 B6YCH0L0GIC FOUNDATIONS. 

CHAPTEE XXXIIL 

The Psychology of Nations. 

§ 188.- There are three nations of ancient time 
that stand to modern civilization in the relation of 
teachers in an eminent sense of the term, and these 
are Greece, Rome, and Judea. The nations of En- 
rope and America to-day recognise this debt to Judea 
by setting apart a learned profession — the highest 
and most sacred of all professions, the clergy — to 
master the divine message revealed through the 
highly endowed spiritual sense of the Hebrews, and in 
turn to make the whole people, high and low, ac- 
quainted with that message and able to govern, each 
his own life in accordance with it. This education 
in revealed religion demands and receives one day in 
seven set apart for its exclusive purpose, besides its 
daily recognition. 

§ 189. Again, our civilization sets apart a learned 
profession to master the laws by which juctice is se- 
cured between man and man. The protection of life 
and property and the punishment of crime, the ordi- 
nances by which individuals combine to form social 
aggregates for the prosecution of business, to provide 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF NATIONS. 271 

for the welfare of towns, cities, counties, states, and 
the nation — all these proceed from a Roman origin, 
and were, in the first instance, taught by the Roman 
praetorian courts that followed in the wake of Roman 
armies and made secure their conquests by establish- 
ing Roman jurisprudence in the place of the local 
laws and customs that had before prevailed; for the 
Latin mind had pondered a thousand years on the 
forms of the will, discovering, one by one, the limita- 
tions of individual caprice and arbitrariness necessary 
to prevent collision of the individual with the social 
whole. 

The Latin lesson to the world teaches us how to frame 
laws and g-uide the individual in such ways as to make all 
his deeds affirmative of the purpose of his community and 
nation, and cause him to inhibit all such deeds as tend 
toward trespass or injury of others. This goes to make 
each person strong- throug-h the corporate will of his 
community and nation. It prevents' the collision of each 
with all^a collision which reduces to zero all reasonable 
action. The modern system of education in Europe and 
America places the study of Latin in all secondary and 
hig-her education as a first essential side by side with 
mathematics in the school studies. This secures for youth 
from three to seven years' daily occupation with the work- 
ings of the Latin mind. The boy or the girl gradually 
becomes permeated with the motives of that serious- 
minded people. He comes to realize the special signifi- 
cance of those words that express the ideals of Roman 
character (and the ideals of all character) — words which 
we have preserved in our translation into English — gravitj'', 
soberness, probity, honesty, self-restraint, austerity, con- 



272 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 

siderateness, modesty, patriotism. Eosenkranz * says: 
" The Latin tongue is crowded with expressions which 
paint presence of mind, the effort at reflection, a critical 
attitude of mind, the importance of self-control." 

§ 190. But there is a third people and a third 
language which we recognise in secondary and higher 
education. We place the Greek language before the 
pupil for its influence on his mind in opening it to 
the vision of science, art, and literature. The Greeks 
invented the chief poetic forms — epic, lyric, and dra- 
matic. They transformed architecture and sculpture 
into shapes that reveal spiritual freedom. They dis- 
covered, in fact, the beautiful in its highest forms 
as the manifestation of freedom or self-determina- 
tion. Besides the beautiful, they also found the true, 
and explored its forms in science and philosophy. 
Science and aesthetics treat of the two forms of the 
intellect just as jurisprudence treats of the forms of 
the will. Thus Greece educates all modern nations 
in forms of art and literature, while Rome educates 
them in the forms which make secure life and prop- 
erty. 

In the beginning- Greece is only aesthetic, worshipping 
beautiful individualities, the gods of Olympus. From the 
beginning it prizes its athletic games as a sort of wor- 
ship of the beautiful by realizing g'racefulness and phys- 

^ Philosophy of Education, vol. i of this series, p. 233. 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF NATIONS. 273 

ical freedom in the body. Later it fixes in stone and 
bronze the forms of its athletes as models, and sets them 
up in temples as statues of the g-ods. Gracefulness is well 
said to be the expression of spiritual freedom in bodily 
form. The soul is represented as in complete control of 
the body, so that every movement and every pose shows 
the limbs completely obedient to the slightest impulse of 
the soul. There is other art than the Greek: we have 
Egyptian and East Indian, Chinese, Persian, and Etruscan, 
but no art that has any success in depicting gracefulness 
or individual freedom. Even. Christian art in Italy, Ger- 
manj^, and France does not attain to supreme graceful- 
ness as does the Greek; for, while Greek art succeeds in 
representing freedom in the body. Romantic art repre- 
sents freedom from the body, or at least a heart-hung'er 
for such freedom. The martyr saints painted by Era An- 
gelico, and the dead Christs of Volterra, Michel Angelo, 
and Rubens, all show an expression of divine repose, hav- 
ing in view the final liberation from the body. Religion in 
its essence is a higher form of spiritual activity than art. 
Christianity is superior to the Greek and the Roman re- 
ligions; but Christian art is not so high a form of art as 
Greek art, because it represents freedom only negatively 
as separation from the body rather than positively as full 
incarnation in the body, like the Olympian Zeus or the 
Apollo Belvedere. Inasmuch as art is the consecration 
of what is sensuous and physical to the purposes of spir- 
itual freedom, it forever piques the soul to ascend out of 
the stage of sense-perception into reflection and free 
thought. To solve the mystery of self-determination in 
the depths of pure thinking is to grasp the substance of 
which highest art is only the shadow. Thus the glorious 
career of Greek philosophy from Thales, through Heracli- 
tus, Pythagoras, and Anaxagoras to its consummation in 
Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, is the process by which 
inner reflection attains the same completeness and per- 
fection that art had attained under Pheidias and Prax- 
iteles. Art has, moreover, a link connecting it with phi- 
losophy. The dramas of iEschylus and Sophocles grapple 



274 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 

with the problems of Greek life, the relation of fate to 
freedoin, the limits of human responsibility, and the mo- 
tives of Divine Providence. Thus art prompts to thought 
on the questions of ultimate moral import, and, in a w^ord, 
to " theology, or first philosophy," as Aristotle names his 
treatise on metaphysics. 

§ 191. These three historical nationalities have 
for modern peoples the highest interest, because they 
furnish the three strands which have been united in 
the civilization of the dominant races that have en- 
tered history in recent times. The psychology of these 
peoples may be briefly characterized: (a) The Greek 
contribution is the perception of the beautiful as the 
manifestation of personal freedom in physical form; 
this is gracefulness, the subordination of things to the 
soul; next, the freedom of thought in science and phi- 
losophy, (h) The Roman is the perception of the free- 
dom of the will; its contradiction of its own freedom 
through trespass on property or violence against life 
and liberty; the forms necessary to protect the indi- 
vidual in his rights of property and the development 
of his freedom, even to the point of arbitrary choice or 
caprice; the security of the social whole, as city or 
empire; the necessity of the individual to devote his 
person and property to the safety of Rome; salus 
populi suprema lex. (c) The Hebrew is the insight 
into the nature of the Absolute as a person; justice 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF NATIONS. 2il5 

(" rigliteousness ") and mercy ('^ goodness '' or '^ lov- 
ing-kindness ") as the essential characteristics of the 
true God; justice, implying responsibility, freedom, 
and independent existence on the part of the creature ; 
mercy, implying immaturity, error, and sin, but the 
choice of God to endure the imperfect for the sake 
of the growth toward perfection of his creatures 
('^long-suffering," '^ tenderness," ^^pity of a father for 
his children ") ; perfect altruism of the Absolute (Old 
and 'New Testament). The last of these national ideas 
is the deepest power in civilization.^ 

Other nations have contributed important ideas, al- 
though not so essential as these three: 

(a) China has worked out the idea of the family, mak- 
ing- it the foundation of the state (a parental g-overnment), 
of its religion (the worship of ancestors), of its philoso- 
phy (having, instead of one first principle, two — yanff 
and yin, a male and likewise a female first principle), and 
of all its learning; for in the family the subordination of 
all its members to the patriarch and the paternal aifec- 
tion of the latter toward the former are essential. Hence 
etiquette becomes the chief thought or ruling idea in the 
Chinese mind. The writings of Confucius and Mencius 
are devoted to its exposition. Education with the Chinese 
consists chiefly in fixing the maxims of this etiquette 
firmly in mind. 

(6) India makes caste the supreme thing, as if it apo- 
theosized civil society and its division of labour, just as 

* Hegel's Philosophy of History and Kosenkranz's 
summary of its ideas furnish the basis of this chapter, 
and also of much else in this book. 



2TG PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 

China the family. The observances of one's caste, its 
duties of action and withholding from action, fill up life. 
Even the philosophy of the East Indian is only a reaction 
from this all-prevailing caste idea; for the Sankhya system 
teaches the escape from all distinctions, ceremonies, deeds; 
from all manifoldness, even consciousness of self, by per- 
sistently thinking of the abstract unity and inhibiting all 
thought of individual things. This is emancipation — 
escape from caste and from its eternal demands for this 
or that ceremony. The Bhagavad Gliita is a good compend 
of East Indian philosophy, which is agreed on this funda- 
mental point, but differs in many superficial points. 

(c) Buddhism is this emancipation from caste realized 
in a religious life, which strives to attain the extinction 
of self-interest as well as interest in others. It furnishes 
a key to the psychology of the Thibetans, the people of 
southern India, Farther India, nearly one third of the 
Chinese, and a large part of the Japanese. It conceives the 
absolute not as a person, but as an empty unity devoid of 
all multiplicity (what vs^e have called a " negative unity " 
in §§ 143-152). It is a phase of thought that crops out per- 
petually in history whenever there is a revolt against the 
existing religion. 

{d) The Persian psychology is in sharp antithesis 
to the East Indian. (1) In Persia we have a new religious 
principle, that of the distinction between good and evil. 
Hence we have a negative power within the divine; for not 
good alone is supreme, but the good is limited by evil, and 
both are eternal, or at least real and actual in the present 
world. The East Indian did not acknowledge the reality 
of evil; it was all " tnaya," or illusion. The whole world 
of Nature, as well as the world of humanity, was a dream 
that exists only in human consciousness, and which is to 
be got rid of by abstraction, penance, and mortification 
of the flesh. 

(2) When the Indian Yogi has tortured and misused 
his body until he has benumbed and paralyzed it to a de- 
gree that it can not feel or perceive, then he is no longer 
haunted by the things of the world; they do not any 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF NATIONS. 27T 

longer flow into his mind through his senses, and he 
becomes divine, or like Brahma, who has no distinctions 
whatever, and hence no consciousness. For conscious- 
ness is a distinction in the ego or wte, which divides it into 
subject and object — I and me — nominative and objective 
cases. The Hindu (or East Indian) will not regard evil 
as divine, or as a part of the highest principle, nor even 
admit any distinction in it; for (he thinks) is not all dis- 
tinction or division a limitation? and is not limitation in 
God the destruction of his infinitude? It will not do, 
therefore, to think God as a this or that, or as not this or 
that, for that would be to limit him. He must be, there- 
fore, pure unity, without distinction; yes, he must be even 
above all unity, above all thought. We see why the Hindu 
does not permit the ideas of goodness or righteousness to 
be applied to Brahma. 

(3) But the Persian does not hold a similar view. He 
believes that there is Ahura-Mazda (Ormuzd), the lord of 
all good, and opposed to him is Angra-Mainya, or Ahri- 
man, the lord of all evil. The Persian insists on this dual- 
ism. Both principles are real; the evil is real, and the 
good is real. Both are in perpetual conflict. This re- 
ligious principle is the cause of the great differences in 
the character of the two peoples. The Persian is an active 
people, making war on surrounding nations, fighting 
for Ahura-Mazda and helping him gain the victory over 
Angra-Mainya. The Hindu believes that evil is only an 
illusion or dream of fallen creatures that have conscious- 
ness like man, and that Brahma is elevated above all op- 
position or conflict of good and evil, as well as all other 
conflicts. Hence the Hindu, in his education, cultivates 
abstract contemplation and meditation, and teaches the 
nugatoriness of all things. The child must be taught how 
to attain blessedness by passivity and repose. No active 
duties and struggles to overcome Nature, but he must be 
mild and spare animal life, even in tigers, serpents, scor- 
pions, and vermin. 

(4) The Persian education fits the youth for a career 
of active warfare against wild beasts and all unclean ani- 



278 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 

mals. All animals are unclean if they are not useful in 
extending" the kingdom of Ahura-Mazda, because the Per- 
sian conceives them to be in the service of Ang-ra-Mainya 
and to be inhabited by evil spirits. The principle of good 
and evil originated in the principle of light and darkness — 
a physical distinction being converted into a moral dis- 
tinction by the great teacher Zoroaster. The religion of 
the Brahmans must have been the same as that of the Per- 
sians before their migration from the high table-lands 
of Bactria to the Indus Valley in the southeast. But a 
divergence took place — the Brahman thinking out a su- 
preme unity that formed the ground of his Vedic gods of 
the sky, while the Persian preserved the distinction and 
held it to be more substantial than the principle of unity. 

(5) Persian education trains the youth to speak the 
truth. This is before all things the highest duty, be- 
cause truth is akin to clearness and light, and is, therefore, 
the mental activity akin to Ahura-Mazda. Next to truth- 
speaking is the practice of justice, for justice treats every 
one according to his deeds; it returns like for like, and 
thus treats each one's will as real. Truth-speaking is the 
worship of reality. If events and things are only a dream, 
it is of no consequence to pay so much respect to them 
as to be scrupulous of veracity in regard to them. Hence 
the Indian makes monstrous fables about things and 
events, and lets them become the sport of his imagination. 
Thus we see how deep-reaching the religious principle is, 
and how widely different the educations based on two 
principles such as the Hindu and Persian. 

(6) The Chinese revere the past, and make their educa- 
tion consist in memorizing with superstitious exactness 
the forms of the past — the maxims of Confucius and 
Mencius — even the vehicle of literature (the alphabet) re- 
quires prodigious efforts of memory to acquire it. Do not 
exercise your spontaneity, but conform to the past. Be 
contented in repeating the thoughts which were original 
twenty-five hundred years ago, and make no new paths, 
plan out no new undertakings. The Persian is not con- 
tent with the past. He must assist Ahura-Mazda in the 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF NATIONS. 279 

great fig-ht with evil, and hence he must hurry to the front. 
The man who is content to remain within the domain al- 
ready conquered is a craven, and does nothing" for the 
realm of light and goodness, but allows the realm of dark- 
ness and evil to hold its own defiant position. Besides 
truth-speaking and justice and faithfulness to one's pledge, 
the Persian lays great stress on physical education, or gym- 
nastics. The riding on horseback, and the use of the bow 
and arrow, the spear, and the javelin, were taught with 
the greatest painstaking. While the East Indian Yogi, on 
the other hand, mortifies his body, paralyzes his senses, 
and tries to lose his power of discrimination, the Persian 
wishes to put his conscious will into his muscles. 

(e) While farther Asia conceives the individual to be 
lacking in substantial and eternal elements, western Asia 
sets aside this idea and makes decided progress toward 
the idea of the conscious personality of God, which the 
" chosen people " finally attain. The Persian idea is that 
of the struggle of light and darkness, of good and evil; 
that of the Euphrates Valley civilizations, of pleasure and 
pain as belong'ing to the divine nature. These feelings are 
subjective; hence to attribute them to God is to insist on 
his having subjectivity. Babylon and Assyria are thus 
advanced beyond Persia in this respect, that they have 
overcome its dualism of good-and-evil first principles. The 
Hercules myth and that of Adonis show a further ad- 
vance over the Euphrates Valley idea, for labour and suf- 
fering are seen to be means of purification by which the 
mortal becomes divine. 

(f) The psychology of the Egyptians shows a further 
ripening of the idea of death as mediatorial for the attain- 
ment of the divine. The elevation of mind to the point of 
seeing Nature with its returning cycle as the symbol of 
the soul, whose consciousness is a constant return into 
itself in self-recognition; this is the arrival at the idea of 
individual immortality as an essential attribute of the 
soul. In Asia it had been regarded as accidental; the East 
Indians had sought how to discontinue the series of new 
births. The Egyptian celebrates his insight into immor- 



2S0 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 

tality in manifold ways. His sphinx (Har-em-Akhu, or 
the sun at its rising) was the symbol of resurrection. 
Osiris dies, but still lives. The death court decides on the 
merits of the life of each individual, and thus sets up a 
standard of living for the population of the entire land. 
The leading- idea of Eg-ypt is preparation for death and care 
for the future life of the soul. 

(g) The Phoenicians, a commercial people, stand in 
contrast to the Chinese in reg-ard to the principle of the 
family. The children were trained to neg-lect the family. 
They were weaned from their love of home by cruel family 
customs. They learned irreverence for their parents, and 
could sail away on adventures in far-olf countries without 
the feeling- of homesickness. The fearful worship of the 
fire g-od — which required the mother to g-ive up her first- 
born son to " pass throug-h the fire to Moloch," repressing- 
her cries even when she saw him laid in the red-hot arms 
of the idol — was a means of educating" the parental and 
filial indifference necessary to produce a population of 
commercial adventurers. 

(h) The Teutonic peoples possessed a nature which 
had for its peculiarity an inordinate desire for personal 
recognition. Tacitus noted this characteristic on his first 
acquaintance with them. We, too, may notice the same 
characteristic in the most remote descendants of these peo- 
ple as we find them in the cowboys of the American bor- 
der lands; for we see one of these wild men approach 
a settlement and announce his presence by daring the 
whole village population out to fight him. He ends his 
appeal to their recognition by asking them all to drink 
with him. His love of recognition is " daimonic," as Rosen- 
kranz calls it, using Goethe's word to describe it. " Other 
peoples," says Hegel, " have definite objects in which they 
seek supremacy. They seek wealth or beauty or abstract 
right, or power, or caste distinction, but the Teutonic race 
seek the satisfaction of the heart " (or Gemutli, as he calls 
it). There is no religion except that of the Old Testa- 
ment that has the element of divine recognition for the 
satisfaction of this heart-hunger. The Psalms of David 



REACTIONS AGAINST THE SOCIAL ORDER. 281 

are the eternal expression of this longing-, for all ag-es and 
all peoples. Christianity, however, is far more exj)licit in 
its terms of fulfilment. It extends its offers to all nations, 
and is the first relig-ion for all mankind. It offers to the 
man desiring- recognition the highest possible satisfaction. 
The Goths and Vandals and Franks had their own religion. 
They had gods like Odin and Thor. They learned from 
Greeks and Romans of Zeus, Ares, and Apollo, or Jupiter, 
Mars, and Saturn. But they were not attracted by such 
mythologies. Indeed, they cared very little for their own 
native religion. Tacitus said of them, " They are sccuri 
adversus deos.'" But when the Christian missionaries came 
to them we may imagine them profoundly impressed with 
the news of such divine condescension and such complete 
recognition. " This new god is the very one we have 
always felt the need of." 



CHAPTEK XXXIY. 

Reactions against the Social Order. — Play and 
Crime. 

§ 192. This social order, realized in the institu- 
tions of civilization, described in Chapters XXXI 
and XXXII, appears to be a sort of fate surrounding 
the individual. If he rebels against it, it crushes 
him. Also, if he obeys it implicitly and passively, it 
crushes him still. Progress from Asiatic tyranny to 
European and American democracy consists in im- 
provements in the method of securing the social order 



282 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 

through the free choice of the individual instead of 
by mere external authority. More and more, so- 
ciety invents ways by which the individual can feel 
his own selfhood fully recognised in the requirements 
of social order. Education is the process of adoption 
of this social order in place of one's mere animal 
caprice. But it is the adoption of a consistent course 
of action instead of a self-contradictory one, and 
hence it is a renunciation of the freedom of the mo- 
ment for the freedom that has the form of eternity. 
The methods of recovering one's sense of freedom, 
in this passage from impulse to obedience to social 
order, are many. Some of them are social, like festi- 
vals and holidays, national ceremonies and celebra- 
tions, and some are individual, like plays and games. 

If one would make himself acquainted with the char- 
acter of a people, he must closely observe not alone their 
political proclivities, their industries, their literature and 
plastic art, but he must look especially to the manner and 
matter of their festivities on holidays; for a people cele- 
brates its deepest conviction on such occasions of mad 
joy and revelry. It celebrates, in the most external way 
perhaps, the very innermost phase of its civilization. A 
symbol-making- activity * seems to be the especial char- 
acteristic of humanity, as distinguished from brutes; for, 
while the apes and certain birds, such as the mocking-- 

* Aristotle in his Poetics doubtless means by (xifi-narn 
the act of embodying- one's nature in symbols — that is, the 
act of portrayal. 



REACTIONS AGAINST THE SOCIAL ORDER. 283 

bird and the parrot, possess the gift of imitation to a hig-h 
degree, they do not indicate in any way tlie existence of 
that correspondence between external manifestation and 
internal state of feeling or idea which is essential to the 
symbol. 

(a) The Significance of Play. — Work and play belong to 
the same antithesis of conceptions. In work, the indi- 
vidual surrenders himself to the service of a universal 
want or necessity of society, which has created a vocation 
or calling. Man gives up his particular, special likes and 
desires in work. He sacrifices ease and momentary con- 
venience for rational (universal) ends. He adopts the social 
order. In play, on the other hand, he gives full rein to the 
individual whim or caprice. In play, his activity is wholly 
turned toward his own immediate gratification. After 
work, in which he sacrifices his private, particular inclina- 
tions for society and for rational ends, comes play, in 
which he returns to his individuality and relaxes this ten- 
sion of work. He regains his feeling of self in play, be- 
cause in play immediate inclination alone guides his activ- 
ity, and thus the particular self is the impelling principle, 
and also the immediate object of it. 

(6) The Play Idea in Greek Art. — It has been pointed out 
that the games of the Roman people adumbrated the prin- 
ciple of their civilization. This, too, v^as the case among the 
Greeks. Gymnastic celebrations presented the visible spec- 
tacle of the human body perfected as a work of art. This 
spectacle for the Greeks had something of a divine or re- 
ligious significance. The Olympians manifested their pres- 
ence to the Grecian people in the form of beautiful in- 
carnations. Personality seems or appears in the beautiful 
— i. e., in matter so completely under the immediate sway 
of personal being that it offers no resistance, but is per- 
vaded with it. Not a line or lineament of the Greek statue 
but is full of grace — in other words, expresses free con- 
trol of the spirit — hence classic repose, dignity, and self- 
possession. 

(c) The Roman Arch and Dome. — The Romans, however, 
had a different national principle and different divinitien 
21 



284 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 

to celebrate. All is a dualism — a gigantic struggle — with 
the Roman. He sets up the contradiction of private gain 
over against the social order. He does not delight in the 
immediate manifestation of the beautiful, but demands a 
deeper and truer revelation of personality than beauty- 
affords, for in his consciousness there has dawned the 
idea of the just and of law. The will is, accordingly, the 
principle which the Roman symbolizes and enjoys in his 
spectacles. The history of the will in man is the history 
of the victory over one's self, of the struggle between I 
want and I ought, between caprice and obedience to law, 
civil and moral. Not moral but civil law was the Roman 
contribution to humanity. They went no further than 
the idea of the just, and for this reason did not fully real- 
ize even it. The moral law, and especially the immediate 
and internal union of the human and divine in the inner- 
most depths of the soul — for this a new national idea was 
demanded, and it also came in the " fulness of time." 
But the fierce struggle of the Roman national life to real- 
ize the supremacy of the state under whose sway the 
world should be subordinated to one principle is the sig- 
nificant phase of Latin civilization. Its architecture hit 
upon the happy expression of this principle in the Pan- 
theon. Its dome is the highest and most perfect realiza- 
tion of the arch in architecture; the arch was so rounded 
with itself as to make a complete building. In the arch 
each component stone supports all the rest, and is in turn 
supported by all the rest; each is thoroughly subordi- 
nated to the whole, and through this subordination each 
is supported by the entire strength of the whole structure. 
The dome is the same principle applied in all directions, 
not merely lengthwise, but transversely. This makes it 
possible to have, instead of the keystone, a complete cir- 
cular opening or double arch at the top, which gives a 
skylight. In the dome we have the image of the broad 
heavens realized in stone. As under the heavens all people 
breathe alike the common air, and " the rain descends 
upon the just and the unjust," so in the Pantheon shall 
be placed all the divinities on the same footing. The gods 



REACTIONS AGAINST THE SOCIAL ORDER. 285 

of the several nations, subdued and brought under the 
yoke of Roman law, shall be here protected and co-ordi- 
nated under the sheltering- dome, fitting symbol of the 
Roman state and its civil law^. 

(d) Roman Games. — In the Colisseum the Romans 
crowded to behold the contests of gladiators with each 
other and with wild beasts. The daily lesson of sacrifice of 
the individual for the will of the state made him delight in 
the spectacle (even in his games) of the sacrifice of indi- 
viduality. For here he felt his own freedom; it was his 
arbitrary will, and not external necessity, that created the 
spectacle. Hence the clash of opposing individual might 
and its destruction had a power to delight the Roman 
heart. It gave enjoyment to see portrayed what he felt 
as his highest principle. 

(e) The Saturnalia. — Illustrations of this principle are 
found in the Saturnalia and Lupercalia, in the Dionysia 
and Panathenaea, in the Eleusinian mysteries, and the like. 
That feature of the Saturnalia wherein the slaves were 
relieved from all ordinary toil and were permitted to wear 
the pileus, the badge of freedom, and granted full freedom 
of speech — were allowed to partake of a banquet, attired 
in the clothes of their masters, who waited upon them at 
the table — suggests the interpretation of this class of popu- 
lar celebrations. The presentation of wax tapers (cerei), 
used in the Saturnalia as the tapers (moccoletti) are used 
in the carnival, points in the same direction. In Rome 
was realized the idea of the abstract equality of man 
before the law; for Roman law endowed each living being 
with rights peculiar to its social and political sphere, 
and protected each one in his station. Even if the rights 
of the father extended to the privilege of taking the life 
of his children, and even if the master could put his slave 
to death, nevertheless the father and master could do this 
only to their own, and the child and the slave were pro- 
tected against similar violence from others. Now this 
recognition by the formal institution of civil rights for 
the child and the slave is a fact to be celebrated in the 
Saturnalia. From the most abstract and fundamental 



286 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 

standpoint, that of the Eoman state, all are recognised 
as having" rights; even the relation of master and slave 
Is not essential, and may be reversed. There is in each 
potentially the rights and privileges of all. Indeed, one 
day in each year they shall celebrate this equality before 
the lav^^ by the ceremony of the pileus and masquerade 
supper. 

(f) The Carnival. — Under Christianity the correspond- 
ing conviction has become deeper. Before the awful real- 
ity of the incarnation of the divine in the human form, 
and the consequent equality of all men in the substance 
of their personality, hovs^ superficial become these social 
and political distinctions! There shall be enacted the 
spectacle of the nugatoriness of these distinctions an- 
nually. Just before the long days of fasting, previous to 
the celebration of the resurrection of the Son of Man, 
there shall be a carnival (in Nevv^ Orleans " the Mardi 
Gras," in St. Louis the " Veiled Prophets," etc.), and in this 
all shall realize for a brief time this consciousness of the 
equality of men in the substance of their manhood. The 
vestments and insignia of caste and powder shall become 
for the time masks, and each one shall choose for himself 
what role he will play in the human world. Eank and 
station are only garments that the human soul puts on, 
and in them masquerades for a brief season. Social dis- 
tinctions are shams in the presence of the soul. This con- 
viction shall rule the hours of the carnival. 

(O) The Higher ^ense of Freedom. — The reason for the 
diminished interest in the carnival in Great Britain and 
the United States arises from the fact that their political 
forms are freer, and it is possible for man to realize for 
himself to a greater extent whatever he desires to be. 
The Anglo-Saxon seeks adventures on the border-lands. 
Hence he is not forced to resort to the masquerade to 
realize for a brief hour his possibilities. In the land of 
civil equality the career opens to the talent, and talent 
unfolds with education. Man is not bound by caste; the 
doors open before his resolute endeavour. He maj-^ know 
that he is his own fate, and that his own intelligence 



REACTIONS AGAINST THE SOCIAL ORDER. 287 

alone limits and conditions him, and this sort of fate he 
can himself form and control. Hence man under a free 
g-overnment is under the constant influence of this fact. 
It does not come upon him spasmodically, exciting him 
to the wildest joy and the utmost abandon. It is the con- 
viction of the everyday working- world. But this can be 
said only with some reservation. Wherever the org-aniza- 
tion of civil society is such that a working class is formed 
who do not enter into participation with the intellectual 
consciousness of the nation by means of the printed page 
of the book and newspaper, there we are certain to find 
this pent-up feeling of selfhood, which must get vent in 
some sudden eruption and burn itself out in a brief period 
of madness and fury. 

(/^) The Newspaper. — The permanent and healthy cure 
for this pent-up feeling of selfhood is the daily news- 
paper, in which every morning the man lifts himself above 
the consciousness of his vocation into the life of the world, 
and beholds the spectacle of universal humanity in its 
eternal process. With this power of lifting the veil that 
shrouds from view the universal (a veil woven of remote- 
ness and lapse of time), the commonest labourer and the 
man of lofty station go into their narrow spheres of voca- 
tion (for vocation is narrowiAg, no matter what kind it is) 
without murmur or complaint. In the midst of the spe- 
cial limitations of daily toil they feel the possibility of 
the universal, which they can and do realize daily. Goethe 
remarks: " For the narrow mind, whatever he attempts 
is still a trade; for the higher, an art; and the highest, 
in doing one thing, does all; or, to speak less paradox- 
ically, in the one thing which he does rightly he sees the 
likeness of all that is done rightly." The daily realization 
of one's identity with the " grand man," or humanity, is 
essential to living a life of freedom. Any vocation what- 
ever becomes a galling slavery unless relieved by the 
spectacle of the whole of society. It will, if pent up, burst 
forth in the wildest orgies. 

{%) The novel, too, is the sociological means invented by 
the civilization of the nineteenth century to secure for the 



288 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 

individual the consciousness of his identity with the social 
whole, it being- only his greater self. 

§ 193. Wherever there is much pressure laid on 
the individual, there the reaction is most violent. The 
pupils in a strictly governed school must have their 
forms of reaction. The school recess should be an 
outdoor one, and should be devoted to spontaneous 
play in the open air, so as to rest the will from its 
tension. In the college, where the pressure of pre- 
scription is far greater, the reaction produces secret 
societies, college songs, hazing, initiations, pranks on 
the citizens, etc. 

(a) Students^ Prattles. — The study of a dead languag-e, 
abstruse mathematics, and disciplines far removed from 
the ordinary life of the age, produces what is called " self- 
estrang-ement " (Selbst-entfremdimg, a word used by Heg-el 
in his Phenomenolog-y of Spirit to describe a phase of the 
reaction ag-ainst authority and traditional faith, which 
belonged to the French Revolution). The study of the 
classics and pure mathematics, the effect of foreign travel, 
of the isolated life of students at universities, of wearing 
gowns and hoods to distinguish them from the outside 
world, all produces self-estrangement. The student by 
and by becomes at home in what w^as at first alien, and 
has enlarged his selfhood. But he preserves his elasticity 
in the meantime by forming Greek-letter societies, where- 
in he caricatures his daily studies, mocks them with in- 
extinguishable laughter, and forms for himself the con- 
sciousness of a new life, a college life of his own creation. 
He " hazes " the members of the lower class, and initiates 
them into his artificial college life by rites well planned 
to shock the traditions of civil order. 



PLAY AND CRIME. 289 

(&) Self -estrangement. — The process of self -estrangement 
and its removal underlies all education. The mind must 
fix its attention upon what is alien to it and penetrate 
^ its disguise, making it become familiar. The student's 
reason must find the reason underlying the objective 
world. Wonder is only the first stage of this estrange- 
ment. It must be followed by recognition. The love of 
travel and adventure arises from the instinct in man to 
discover his own reason in the external world. When he 
has been through his self-estrangement, he has gained 
power to objectify his immediate feelings and impulses, 
and can understand what was before obscure in himself. 
(See Rosenkranz, Philosophy of Education, §§23 and 24.) 

§ 194. When the reaction against the social order 
fixes itself permanently and seriously, it passes be- 
yond the limits of play and becomes crime. In play, 
the serious recognition of the social order as some- 
thing substantial and in rightful authority remains 
underneath the mask. But when the individual in 
all seriousness attacks the authority of the social 
whole, he becomes a criminal. 

(«) Crime is the attack made by the individual against 
the social whole — the attack made against the higher self 
of human nature by the lower self. Life is not worth liv- 
ing for man unless he can participate in the life of the 
race, and thus partake of infinitude. For by this partici- 
pation he uses the sense-perceptions of innumerable beings 
like himself, past and present; he uses the results of their 
thinking over the problems of the w^orld and profits by 
the fruits of their experience. The individual, thus re- 
enforced by the entire race past and present, is, as we 
have named it, made infinite. The criminal would by his 
act destroy this great process of collecting from all and 



290 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 

distributing- to each; for he refuses to obey the necessary 
laws that make society possible. 

(6) Sin and Crime. — There are two attitudes of the in- 
dividual who puts his lower self in hostility to his hig-her 
self — these attitudes are called sin and crime. The insti- 
tution of the Church takes cognizance of sin, while the 
state takes cognizance of crime. The Church looks at the 
disposition of the man, while the state looks at the overt 
act. The attitude of hostility to the higher self in the 
depths of the soul — in the innermost disposition — is deadly 
sin, and, whether accompanied with overt acts or not, is 
immeasurable in its deserts of punishment. Only repent- 
ance can undo the sin — ^no amount of external deeds will 
restore the sinner to holiness. But the state must not 
regard the mere disposition; it must wait for the overt 
act. The overt act can be measured, while the disposition 
can not be measured. The state can attempt to measure 
out its punishments and fitly adapt them to each case. 
The overt act, the actual deed, can be measured, but the 
internal disposition is immeasurable. If met by justice, 
it must suffer annihilation. Grace will meet it if it re- 
pents, and save it from punishment and eternal death. 

(c) Church and State. — This distinction between crime 
and sin has been growing clear for many centuries, and 
by its light the nations are coming to see the necessity of 
the separation of Church and state. If the two standards 
are mixed, we should have the state undertaking to pun- 
ish individuals not for overt acts, but for supposed in- 
tention to commit such. This produced in France a 
" reign of terror." The Church, on the other hand, does 
not treat sin as though it were crime, and offer forgive- 
ness for sin as an equivalent for the performance of some 
work of penance or for the suffering of some temporal 
inconvenience. The Church must not measure sin, nor 
the state omit to measure the overt act. 

(d) The Measurement of Crime. — In the course of the 
ages of human history the state has learned how to se- 
cure justice — that is to say, how^ to measure crime and 
inflict due punishment. It has discovered that this can 



PLAY AND CRIME. 291 

be done by returning- the deed on the doer. It does this 
sj'mbolically rather than literally. It says to the mur- 
derer: " You have taken the life of a fellow-man; your 
act shall come home to you, and you shall take your own 
life either on the scaffold or in prison with a life sen- 
tence." Or it saj^s to a thief: " Your act was to take away 
property which is man's means of independence; you 
shall lose your independefnce as a consequence of the deed 
coming home to you, and you shall sit in a jail." 

(e) Poetic Justice. — What the state has devised has 
also been celebrated in the literatures of all lands. In 
fact, the supreme task of literary art has been this: to 
show how human deeds come back to their doers in spite 
of the struggles of the criminal to escape their conse- 
quences. Literature has shown this so clearly that it fur- 
nishes the wdsdom of the race in its most accessible form. 
The great poets — Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, and Goethe — 
have created for us personages whose inner dispositions 
and overt acts are perfectly transparent to us, and their 
fates square the account of justice. These literary forms 
are so much clearer to us than any historical characters 
can be that in them we realize the saying of Aristotle — 
that poetry is truer than history. In history we are ever 
at a loss to determine the relation betAveen the overt act 
and the disposition or motive of the doer. But we are in 
no doubt whatever as to this relation in the case of such as 
^Macbeth, Othello, King Lear, Ulysses, Agamemnon, Achilles, 
or Faust. The logical connection between the deed and its 
reward is portrayed by these great literary artists in 
order to reveal man's higher self — the social self. But 
more than this is done: it is shown that the individual 
is so made in his innermost nature that he can not exist 
as human apart from the institutions of society. Hence 
his punishment overtakes him for his crimes even when 
there is no punishment done on him by the state. 

§ 195. Man, as we have said, lias two selves. The 
primal self is largely a product of ^Nature. There is 



292 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 

heredity, which gives the person his outfit of disposi- 
tions and impulses — the body that he lives in and 
must use as an instrument to act with. He may in- 
herit strong passions or a weak nervous organism, or 
a tendency to any one of the seven mortal sins. This 
does not, however, destroy his freedom, nor can the 
surrounding circumstances which form the second ele- 
ment of fate next after heredity annul his transcen- 
dental freedom. He is free to withhold from all 
action — he can utterly suppress the natural factor 
attached to him, by suicide — this is the transcendental 
character of his will. If he permits passion, or inter- 
est, or impulse to have sway, it is he that consents and 
is responsible. 

(a) The Psijchology of Dante's Inferno. — Dante has de- 
voted his great threefold poem to this internal relation 
of the soul to its deeds. There are seven mortal sins or 
states of hostility within the soul to its higher self, as 
realized in institutions — there are lust, intemperance, ava- 
rice, anger, indolence, envy, and pride. Dante shows us 
by symbolical pictures in his Inferno how the sin itself — 
the very disposition in which the sin originates — is itself 
a punishment of hell. 

(1) To him, the soul in the lustful frame of mind is 
driven aboiit by tempestuous gusts through the darkened 
air without a star. The lustful souls fly in long flocks 
like cranes. Lust darkens the air and shuts out the light 
of truth. The intemperate lie on the ground, beaten upon 
by storms of hail and foul water, their bodies preventing 
their intellectual souls from partaking of the higher spir- 
itual food, the wisdom of the race. So, too, the avaricious 



PLAY AND CRIME. 293 

are shown to us rolling" heavy weights to and fro, heaping 
pelf and squandering it, but not using it for independ- 
ence of bodily wants or for the diffusion of a knowledge 
oi the higher self. The angry are represented by Dante 
as swimming about in thick, putrid mud gurgling in their 
throats — an apt symbol of the effects of wrath on the 
soul's power of insight. The indolent are driven furiously 
about, running after a giddy flag. Having no reasonable 
purpose of their own, they are driven about by the goad- 
ings and stings of outside circumstances. 

(2) The envious are punished in the different ditches 
as perpetrators of as many different kinds of fraud. The 
hypocrites, for instance, wear heavy cloaks of lead, gilded 
on the outside to look as if of gold. They have to en- 
dure the hard task of sustaining two different charac- 
ters — first their own, and second of the one they assume. 
The soothsayers and fortune-tellers, who open the book 
of fate and make the future known in the present, have 
all suffered a paralytic stroke, and their necks are so 
twisted around that their faces look backward, as if Dante 
had said: The effect of knowing the future, or of sup- 
posing that we know it, is to paralyze our wills in the pres- 
ent, and prevent us from acting and trying like reasonable 
beings to do our best to make the future better than the 
present. If we believe the fortune-teller, all is now already 
determined and irrevocably fixed before we have acted. 
All time, in fact, is converted into a past, and we can only, 
stand with our hands folded and look at the future as if 
already gone by. Our necks are so paralyzed and twisted 
that we look back upon all as past and only past. 

(3) Pride is the deepest of the mortal sins, because it 
strikes at the very fundamental principles of all institu- 
tions. It wants no bond of union with its fellow-men or 
with the Creator. It says, " I alone by myself am sufficient 
for myself." Dante therefore punishes pride as four dif- 
ferent kinds of treachery, freezing the proud traitors in 
ice, to symbolize the effect of unsociality in chilling the 
activities of the soul. The sins of incontinence — lust, in- 
temperance, avarice, anger, and indolence — do not strike 



294: PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 

against society and institutions directly, but indirectly 
throug-h their ultimate effects. But envy with, its ten 
species of fraud attacks the social bond itself; for fraud 
assumes the forms and ceremonies of society to work 
the ruin of social ends and aims. The individual, seeing 
that fraud is done in the forms of society, hesitates to 
trust society. Thus envy strikes against the social bond 
direct. But envy does not equal pride in its negative 
effects. Pride says, " I do not want either the goods of my 
fellow-creatures or their society." Envy says, " I wish all 
your goods given to me and you deprived of them." 

Dante has in the second part of his poem shown the 
sort of pain that the soul suffers in its struggles to purge 
itself free from these seven mortal sins. The Purgatory 
differs from the Inferno, therefore, in the quality of its 
pain and suft'ering. The state of mind which is in the 
Inferno persists in retaining its sinful purposes and doing 
its deeds against the institutions of society. It supposes 
that its sufferings are undeserved, and due to the hatred 
and unjust persecution of its fellow-men and of God. It 
does not see that its state of torment is due to its own 
deeds — to the atmosphere of those of its deeds which strike 
against the existence of its own higher self. 

(b) The Psychology of Dante's Purgatory. — But in the 
Purgatory the soul sees that mortal sin brings with it 
its own atmosphere of torment, and it strives to eradicate 
from itself all tendency to sin, and for this purpose it wel- 
comes the pain that comes as a means of purification. If 
the mortal sin had not been accompanied by hellish tor- 
ments, the soul would not have been able to discover the 
true nature of its deed, and might therefore have never 
known the paradise of the higher self — the life in sub- 
ordination to institutions. Punishment is thus seen in the 
purgatorial state of the soul to be a tribute of recognition 
on the part of the Creator — a recognition of the freedom of 
the will. Man is recognised as responsible for his acts, as 
owning his deed. Punishment by imprisonment on the part 
of the state is a high compliment to the individual criminal, 
for it assumes that the individual is free in doing his deed. 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF INFANCY. 295 

CHAPTEE XXXV. 

The Psychology of Infancy. 

§ 196. For the first four years of tlie child's life 
the family education has been all in all for him. 
He has learned in his first year to hold up his head, 
to clutch things with his hands, using his thumbs in 
contraposition to his fingers, to follow moving ob- 
jects with his eyes; he has learned smells and tastes, 
sounds and colours, and the individuality of objects. 
He has learned to move himself, using his limbs some- 
what as a turtle does in crawling. In his second 
year he has learned to stand alone and to walk; to 
use some words and understand the meaning of a 
great many more. His recognition of colours, sounds, 
tastes, and touch-impressions has increased enormous- 
ly. He has acquired his first set of teeth and can 
use them. 

The scientific observations of Professor Preyer have 
taug-ht us hov^ important is the epoch w^hen the human in- 
fant ceases to clutch objects only vs^ith the four fingers 
like most of the ape family, and learns to use his thumb 
over against his fingers. This contraposition of the thumb 
began, in the case he records, about the tv^elfth week of 
the infant's life — at first a sort of reflex action without 
the will, and then soon after produced by the will, so that 
contraposition of the thumb was quite attained by the 



296 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 

fourteenth week. The infant rejoices in each new power 
g-ained, and incessantly practises it with voluntary atten- 
tion until it by degrees sinks into a habit. The first look 
of attention on the part of the child of Preyer was given 
to some swinging tassels on the thirty-ninth day. In the 
ninth week it noticed and gave attention to the ticking 
of a watch. Other important epochs mentioned in his 
Mind of the Child are the following: 1. Holding up its 
head by the act of will in the eleventh week. 2. Standing 
alone in the forty-eighth week. 3. Walking in the fiftieth 
week. 4. Recognition of its mother on the sixty-first day. 
5. Recognition of its own image in a mirror in the sixth 
month — stretching out its hand to the image — also recog- 
nising its father's image, and turning to look at the real 
father and compare him with the image. 6. In the seven- 
teenth week is noticed the first recognition of self, indi- 
cated by attention to his own hand; and six weeks later 
an elaborate series of experiments of touching himself 
and foreign objects alternately. 7. The discovery o'f itself 
as cause when it can produce sound by rattling a paper, 
or by striking one object with another, or tearing asunder 
a piece of paper — this is a most delightful discovery to the 
child. 8. But imitation, which begins about the fifteenth 
week and by and by develops into the use of language, is 
the most interesting evidence of the growth of the intel- 
lect. This glance at infant life reminds us that in educa- 
tion things that are very trivial at one epoch are of great 
moment at another. In cases of arrested development 
the educational value of such matters as the contraposi- 
tion of the thumb, the exertion of the will in supporting 
the body erect, and in imitation, is coming to be well 
understood, as one may see in recent schools for the feeble- 
minded. But the order of development of these things 
is all-important. An act is educative when first learned, 
and then only. After it has become habit it is a second 
nature^ — a new nature produced by the will, and is no 
longer educative. Man as a bundle of habits is a self-made 
being. Professor Preyer's child was so delighted with 
the discovery that it could put a cover on a box, that it 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF INFANCY. 297 

deliberately took it off and replaced it seventy-nine times 
without an interval of rest. It was an educative step in 
its development — a step in the discovery of its selfhood 
as an energy, as well as a step in the discovery of adapta- 
tion in the external world. 

§ 197. Imitation precedes the acquisition of lan- 
guage. In his third and fourth years the child's 
knowledge of the external world has progressed stead- 
ily, powerfully aided, as it is now, by the acquisition 
of language; for by language the child has become 
able to use the senses of other people as well as his 
own. He listens to their accounts of what they have 
seen, and asks questions incessantly to draw out the 
experience of his parents, old brothers and sisters, 
attendants and acquaintances. E^ot only does he 
learn to see and hear through other people — that is 
to say, get information of the results of older peo- 
ple's observations — but he begins to use their reflec- 
tions and inquires eagerly for explanations. It is a 
great delight for him to discover that things and 
events are little sections in endless chains of things 
and events — little beads, as it were, strung on a long 
thread of causal relation — each thing or event being 
the effect of some antecedent thing or event, and like- 
wise destined to be the cause of other things and 
events to follow it. The world seems very wonder- 
ful to the child when the principle of causality begins 



298 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 

to act in his mind^ and lie wishes to know the why 
of things and events, wishes to learn in what sense 
they are means to something else, in what sense they 
are results of something else. 

Through imitation of sounds and the effort to attach 
a meaning to them, language has arisen, and now the child 
has enlarged his educative possibilities infinitely; for he 
can, as we have just seen, learn the results of the sense- 
perception of older and wiser people than himself, and 
also the results of their thoughts and reflections. A 
miraculous change takes place in the child's sense-percep- 
tion in learning to talk. Before he learns the use of lan- 
guage each thing or event is looked upon as all in all by 
itself. Hence he does not see its relations and can not 
" apperceive " it. But just as soon as he learns language 
he sees every object, every single event or thing, as an in- 
dividual of a class, as one specimen of an indefinite num- 
ber of possible specimens (see Chapter XXV). In other 
words, the use of language implies that the child has 
begun to use universal terms, words for classes, and to 
think all objects as specimens of classes. It is a note- 
worthy thing, therefore, in the second year of a child to 
hear him call the name of an animal or thing upon seeing 
it. He has ascended above his previous state of develop- 
ment. To him the particular object seen and named is 
one individual seen on a background of infinite possibility 
of the production of such individuals. It is evident that 
language implies a causal view of the world, and, more 
than this, it implies a world of genera or species and par- 
ticular individuals. Finally, it implies that the classes or 
species or genera are not mere results of picking out simi- 
lar individuals and arranging them together in classes. He 
assumes that each object has a producing process of some 
kind behind it, and this concept is the idea of a true uni- 
versal. The child, therefore, begins to ask the names for 
all things and events. He tries the patience of his elders 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF INFANCY. 299 

by his persistence. Why does he lay so much stress on 
mere names? they ask. The reply is found in what we 
have just noAv considered — the child's sense-perception has 
arisen above the plane of animal sense-perception, and 
he now and forever after sees each thing-, and will see 
it, as a specimen of a class. Classification is effected by 
naming. It is the primary condition for putting- the mind 
in an attitude of re-enforcing- his present observation by 
all its own experience and all the experience of his fel- 
lows. He therefore wants a name for the class, so that 
he may forthwith beg-in to store up the different possi- 
bilities of form, shape, size, colour, and other varieties of 
type that he may find in future experience. 

§ 198. The place of imitation in tlie development 
of civilized man is beginning to be recognised.* Not 
only does imitation give rise to language, but it leads 
to the formation of institutions, the family, civil com- 
munity, the state, the Church — those greater selves 
which re-enforce the little selves of isolated individ- 
uals. Imitation is social in its very nature, for it is 
the repetition by the individual within himself of 
the deeds of his fellows. The study of imitation leads 
to the discovery of the modes by which the individ- 
ual man repeats for himself the thinking and doing 

* Mr. G. Tarde, Les lois de limitation etude sociolog-ique, 
Paris, 1890. Prof. ]\Iark Baldwin, of Princeton University, 
articles on The Psychology of Imitation, in Science, 1891, 
1892; in Mind, 1894; his book, Mental Evolution in the 
Child- and the Pace, 1895. Prof. Josiah Koyce, of Harvard, 
article on The Imitative Functions and their Place in 
Human Nature, in the Century for May, 1894. 



300 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 

and feeling of liis fellows, and thus enriches his own 
life by adding to it the lives of others. Thus (as 
shown in Chapters XXXI and XXXII) his own life 
becomes vicarious for others, and he participates vi- 
cariously in the life of society. The psychology of 
imitation explains the mode in which the individual 
man unites with his fellow-men to form a social whole. 

(a) What are manners and customs but imitated forms 
of doing, that preserve the results of successful experience 
in dealing- with Nature or in co-operating- with one's fel- 
lows? What is fashion, with its apparently capricious 
chang-es, but the method of emancipating- individuals from 
the tyranny of old customs and usages that insist on 
minute punctilios in matters that are unimportant except 
as symbols of our membership in the social whole? Thus 
one kind of imitation supplants another as more progres- 
sive. The fashions of the semicivilized and savage people 
last without change from generation to generation — and, 
indeed, it is likely for hundreds and even for thousands 
of years — because the savage intellect can not as yet at- 
tain the strength to discriminate between moral and indif- 
ferent actions. The savage has only two kinds of deeds, 
moral and immoral; while the civilized man has three 
kinds, moral, immoral, and unmoral. Thus that form of 
imitation which we all despise as mere fashion has sig- 
nificance as the means of emancipating us from that heavy 
yoke of ceremonial that once prescribed the forms of our 
indifferent actions as though they were of moral or re- 
ligious import. 

(6) Imitation develops, on the one hand, into habits, 
or customs and morals, and this is the will side of the 
human mind; and, on the other hand, it develops into 
perception, memory, ideas, and insights, this beirig the 
intellectual side. It is evident that the pedagogic in- 
terest in psychology is the evolution of the higher facul- 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF INFANCY. 301 

ties out of the lower. It is all-important for us to under- 
stand this progressive step by which free moral action 
develops in the place of mere unconscious use and wont. 
We must discover how mere external memory of borrowed 
ideas gives place to insight. It is necessary, first of all, 
to discover the most elementary forms of imitation. In 
this research the students of psychical phenomena have 
greatly aided. The discovery of the fact that a small per- 
centum of people are so sensitive to the mental influences 
about them that they can, without the intermediation of 
words, read the thoughts of others, has been made and 
verified in numerous instances. The study of hypnotism 
has taken up this fact into a class of related facts belong- 
ing not only to the intellect, but to the will and the emo- 
tions as well. The phrase " hypnotic suggestion " has 
come to play a great role in elucidating the rudimentary 
facts of imitation. The hypnotizer suggests an idea, which 
the hypnotic subject takes up and carries out in feeling 
or action. The rapid progress of scientific investigation in 
this field of psychic research promises to throw light on 
all social thought, feeling, and action. It will help us to 
understand much that has been obscure in the rise and 
spread of popular beliefs, the genesis of social tornadoes, 
like the Crusades, the French Kevolution, the Tartaric 
invasions of Europe, or even such local affairs as strikes 
and mobs. 

§ 199. To see the significance of imitation in the 
child-mind, we must look upon it not as a comparative- 
ly feeble and mechanical effort, as something deter- 
mined by outside influences, but as a phase of self- 
activity which is engaged in emancipating the self 
from heredity and natural impulse. We must not 
lose sight of this essential fact, that shows itself even 
in the most rudimentary of the phenomena of imita- 



302 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 

tion. There can be no imitation whatever except on 
the part of self-active beings — in other words, only 
souls can imitate. ^' Imitation/' says M. Compayre, 
^' is the reproduction of what one has seen another 
do.'' It is therefore always to some extent an act of 
assimilation. Even if we extend the meaning of 
imitation so as to include unconscious mimicry and all 
phenomena akin to hypnotic suggestion, still it is 
self-activity that does the imitating. What is beheld 
as an act of another is converted by adoption into an 
act of self. The pride and pleasure that the infant 
exhibits on the occasion of his first conscious imita- 
tion has its root in this, that he has made something 
his own — has proved himself equal to imitating in 
himself a movement by his will — he has revealed 
his selfhood to some extent. This is the significance 
of play, which is chiefly imitation, that the unde- 
veloped human being is learning to know himself by 
seeing what he can do. He is revealing himself to 
others and to himself, and getting strength in his in- 
dividuality. 

(a) Thus we see that there is an element of orig-inality 
in the most mechanical phase of imitation. The self is 
active and assimilative. It sees an external deed w^hich it 
proceeds to make its own deed by imitation. The child 
proves itself to possess a human nature identical with the 
one whom it imitates. 

(&) Originality grows by progressive deepening of the 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF INFANCY. 303 

insig-ht into the causes and motives of the thing- imitated. 
Ihe lowest stage of imitation superstitiously imitates all 
the details, because it has no insig-ht into the grounds and 
purposes of the action imitated, and but little comprehen- 
sion of the means employed. When it understands the 
means and the motives, it strikes out for itself and makes 
new^ adaptations. It modifies its imitation to suit differ- 
ences of circumstances. 

(c) Originality growls with this ascending compre- 
hension of means and purposes. There comes a time when 
the imitative child comprehends the principle as well as 
does the master whom he imitates, and then he is emanci- 
pated from all imitation in this part of his education. If 
he keeps on and comprehends the genesis of the principle 
from deeper principles, he emancipates himself from even 
the " hypnotic suggestion " of the principle itself, and all 
external authority has become inward freedom. 

(d) M. Tarde, in his great book on the Laws of Imi- 
tation, speaks of self-imitation, as in the case of habit 
(page 83), which he defines as a sort of " unconscious imi- 
tation of one's self by one's self." Here, in the stages of 
originality, w^here the person has learned to comprehend 
what he once imitated, and now understands it in its causes 
and in the reasons for its existence, is self-imitation, if 
we are to sj)eak of imitation at all. It is no longer an 
activity at an outward suggestion, but purely spontane- 
ous. It has vanquished the external object by ascending 
to its causes. 

(e) It is worthy of note that this book of M. Tarde 
is a French study of sociology. In the French Revolu- 
tion the thought of Rousseau produced individualism, and 
the social whole was denied a valid existence in the shape 
of the state, except in so far as it appeared as a free con- 
tract between individuals. It was not considered that a 
contract always implies the pre-existence of state or 
government, a social whole to give validity to the con- 
tract. It is well that this new^ movement in psychology, 
which proves the substantial basis of mental evolution 
to lie in social institutions, should receive its great impulse 



304 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 

from a Frenchman. Rousseau's influence in behalf of in- 
dividualism has extended to all nations that read books. 
M. Tarde is the anti-Rousseau. With Rousseau the indi- 
vidual is from " the hand of Nature," v^hile the institu- 
tions of society are man-made, artificial, and without bind- 
ing- reality. Over ag-ainst this doctrine of individualism 
the tendency of M. Tarde is to set up the doctrine of the 
social whole as all in all. 

§ 200. Imitation in its purest and simplest form 
— tliat of mechanical repetition of the actions of an- 
other person — is, by common consent, placed at the 
bottom of spiritual achievements. A monkey or a 
parrot can mimic actions or speech, and to call the 
action of a human being parrotlike repetition or a 
process of aping is to express reproach and contempt 
for it. 

(a) This proves the felicity of a study of the psychol- 
ogy of education which makes imitation its corner stone. 
What teacher is there that does not despise mere verbal 
repetition in his pupils? Can there be a g^reater paradox 
in educational psycholog-y than the theory which sets out 
with the function of imitation and attempts to show that 
all forms of intellectual and moral activity are only varie- 
ties of this despised mode of action? If there is an at- 
tractive method of bringing" psychology to the attention 
of teachers, surely it has now been found. The sheer 
audacity of the theory that places the stone which the 
teachers had rejected for the head of the corner will fix 
the attention alike of the primary schoolmistress and the 
professor in college. 

(6) The profoundest thinker of the human race, Aris- 
totle, hits upon this subject of imitation in his Poetics, 
making it the basis of his philosophy of art. What he says 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF INFANCY. 305 

in the fourth and ninth chapters on the subject of Mime- 
sis, or imitation, leads us rather to see a deeper meaning- 
in the word tlian mimicry or mechanical repetition. It 
seems almost to mean symbol-making*. " Man is the most 
imitative of animals, and makes his first steps in learn- 
ing- by aid of imitation," he tells us. Man is a symbol- 
making" animal always in whatever he does; making* a 
symbol of what he is in his essential nature; always re- 
peating- in himself the symbols of the existence and 
actions of all other beings. 

(c) Leibnitz, the philosopher who translated Aristotle's 
ideas for modern readers, has told us in his Monadology 
that each soul is a monad which, by its self-activity, re- 
peats for itself, or represents, the whole universe. This 
is imitation on a grand scale — imitation transfig-ured, we 
mig-ht say — that by self-activity assimilates the whole uni- 
verse. The monad creates for itself the world that it per- 
ceives. Here, we see, is the harmonj^ of freedom and 
authority. The soul is not determined by what lies out- 
side it, but determines itself (see Chapter XXII) so as to 
reproduce the beings and the causes that are outside it. 
Here, too, is the social man again of M. Tarde; for each 
man has this one destiny, to sum up in himself the life 
and deeds of the race. 

(d) The great world poet, Goethe, in his Wilhelm 
Meister, treats the problem of culture or education, in 
its widest sense, in connection and contrast with the prob- 
lem of dramatic art — how to make an actor. The indi- 
vidual sees ideals above him, and impersonates them; 
loves them and imitates them; wears them as a player 
acts his part. Gradually he acquires as a second nature 
his ideals, and must keep growing on into new and higher 
ideals. The mere actor (he shows) must be able to assume 
quickly all characters, and yet possess no character him- 
self; he must be a sort of professional wig-block, to hold 
one after another all kinds of wigs, but to have not even 
a scalp of its own. Goethe's favourite characters are 
those who react against their environments by internal de- 
velopment. They always press beyond imitation toward 



306 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 

the indwelling- principle of that which is imitated, and 
thus attain freedom. In contrast to these, he draws us 
pictures of characters who have hardened into habit and 
become fixed in all their imperfections. 

§ 201. In the acquirement of language the child 
has come into possession of the most powerful instru- 
ment of self-education that exists, and he has ac- 
quired a new faculty of mind — the faculty of seeing 
each object before the senses in the light of its uni- 
versal — that is to say, he sees the real with a margin 
of ideal possibilities all around it. Ever after he will 
see any example or specimen that comes under a 
class name with a reflection that the previous speci- 
men differed from it in some respects of size or colour 
or shape. He will think of the other possibilities 
not realized whenever he sees any given real speci- 
men of a class. Here, therefore, begins the child's 
perception of ideals; right here, when he begins to 
use language. Seeing possibilities or ideals, the child 
now begins to have will-power. Before ideals or mo- 
tives are seen, the will-power has not yet risen out of 
blind impulse or instinct. IN'ow as he sees objects he 
thinks of their unrealized possibilities, and at once he 
has a motive to act. To act gives him a consciousness 
of his own power to create; for to change a possibil- 
ity into a reality, to actualize a motive, is to create 
a new form; it is to cause that to exist which was 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF INFANCY. 307 

merely ideal before. Thus in process of learning 
language the child is unfolding genuine will-power, 
learning to see all things as results of processes which 
are active universals, and getting true self-conscious- 
ness. The recognition of the self as causative, or cre- 
ative of new forms, is self-consciousness, the recogni- 
tion of one's own individuality. 

(a) This recognition of ideals, when one comes to see 
the individual object on the background of the universal or 
class, has a sig-nificance for science. Science is, in fact, 
the systematic statement of what unconscious experience 
has found in the object; for this purpose science beg"ins 
with an inventory which g-leans all the individual obser- 
vations and preserves them. All the phases of the object 
are necessary to its complete revelation. Then science can 
see in each phase all the others as helping- to explain it. 

(h) The first step above brute instinct beg-ins when 
man looks beyond thing's as he sees them existing- before 
him, and commences to consider their possibilities; he 
begins to add to his external seeing an internal seeing; 
the world begins to assume a new^ aspect; each object 
appears to be of larger scope than its present existence, 
for there is a sphere of possibility environing it — a sphere 
which the sharpest animal eyes of lynx or eagle can not 
see, but which man, endowed with this new faculty of in- 
ward sight, perceives at once. To this insight into possi- 
bilities there loom up uses and adaptations, transforma- 
tions and combinations in a long series stretching into 
the infinite behind each finite real thing. The bodily eyes 
see the real objects, but can not see the infinite trails; these 
trails are invisible except to the inward eyes of the mind. 

(c) What we call directive power on the part of man, 
his combining and organizing power, all rests on this 
power to see beyond the real things before the senses to 
the ideal possibilities invisible to the brute. The more 



308 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 

clearly man sees these ideals the more perfectly he can 
construct for himself another set of conditions than those 
in which he finds himself. 

§ 202. The period of infancy is dominated by 
what may be called the symbolic stage of mind. We 
have seen * that even in feeling there is a reaction 
within the animal soul, the same being a reproduction 
for itself of the object felt in the environment. The 
representation, unconscious in feeling, becomes con- 
scious in recollection and memory. In fancy and 
imagination it becomes free from the external. These 
forms of activity all deal with images or pictures in 
the mind. There is an ascending series of these, from 
the fixed image in the perception of an immediate 
object, toward the image of the productive or crea- 
tive imagination. More and more the image is ac- 
companied with thought, which defines relations of 
cause and effect, of genus and species. Thought is 
non-picturable, but the image furnishes illustrations 
for the causal relations seized by the thinking process. 
Think any object by definition, and it must be thought 
as an individual of a species; the general includes the 
process by which the individual is originated, and 
the individual is a result of that process. The result 
can be imaged. The mental pictures that accompany 

* Chapters xxii to xxv. 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF INFANCY. 309 

thouglit are thus representations of some of the re- 
sults of the process thought out in conceiving a genus 
or species. But it is long before the mind becomes 
aware of the relation of its images to its thoughts. 
It takes for granted that the mental pictures include 
all that there is in its thoughts ; whereas, in fact, they 
include only termini, and not the process that lies be- 
tween those termini. The first suspicion that the 
mind gets of the inadequacy of these mental pictures 
leads to symbolic thought. In the symbol the object 
is seized in its identity with some other object and 
made to stand for it. The difference is kept in the 
background of the mind, but not lost. The symbol 
has great advantage in dealing with thoughts that 
can not be imaged. The Latin word for soul, anima, 
means breath. The ideas of invisibility and 'pervad- 
ing belong to both, and the material breath becomes 
symbol for the immaterial self -activity, soul. The 
s^Tubolic stage is the identification of the natural with 
the spiritual, and likewise the beginning of a dis- 
qrimination of them. All objects are conceived as 
containing a spiritual meaning. 

§ 203. The symbolic phase of mind is not ana- 
lytic so much as synthetic. If it analyzes its object, 
it comes at once on differences, and more numerous 
differences than identities. Air differs from soul in 



310 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 

very many ways; it resmbles it in two, or perhaps 
three, ways. The more mature analysis differentiates 
(using the third figure of the syllogism, Chapter XI), 
while the earlier synthetic activity identifies (using 
the second figure. Chapter IX) and catches analogies. 
The symbol is consequently one-sided and equivocal. 
It may be understood in a different sense from that in- 
tended, and will be so understood by the person lack- 
ing poetic sense. 

§ 204. There must be distinguished the following 
stages of symbolism: 

(a) Personification: the placing of a soul in a 
thing; animism. 

(h) Metaphor: the elevation of thing to a spiritual 
meaning (thing to soul, as personification makes soul 
to thing). 

(c) Play: one thing substituted for another: 
'^ Make believe that this stick is a horse " ; ^' I have 
built a house with these blocks " ; ^' This is the way 
the farmer mows his grass." 

(d) The unconscious symbolic in poetry and 
mythology. It uses typical characters, shrouding the 
human in the forms of animals in fairy stories and 
fables. It uses typical characters in their proper per- 
sonality in poetry. The particular is taken for the 
general class. 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF INFANCY. 31I 

(a) The child delights in fairy tales because they sport 
with the fixed conditions of actuality, and present to him 
a picture of free power over Nature and circumstances. 
Thus they to some extent prefig-ure to him the conquest 
which his race has accomplished and is accomplishing-; 
it is made to appear as the exploits of some Aladdin or 
Jack the Giant-killer. " To modify, chang"e, or destroy 
the limits of common actuality," as Kosenkranz says, is 
the perpetual work of the race. It moulds the external 
world to suit its own ideas. Play is the first education 
that the child gets to prepare him for this human destiny. 

(b) How what is symbolic becomes conventional is 
perhaps the most interesting- question in the psycholog-y 
of early education. Conventional studies, like the alphabet 
and orthog-raphy, can not well be taken up until the child 
has reached this conventional epoch of g-rowth. In the 
old hieroglyphic system the letter A represented the face 
of an ox, and was symbolic. Since the Phoenicians carried 
the alphabet to other peoples, A has been a conventional 
sign for a particular sound, and its original meaning for- 
gotten. 



§ 205. The step from the image of a material ob- 
ject by symbolism to a spiritual relation shows a prog- 
ress. At first the object (e. g., breath) is conceived^ 
and, next after, it becomes symbol (viz., of the soul). 
But the more familiar this step becomes the less time 
is occupied in imaging the material object, and the 
accent is placed more sharply on the thought of the 
spiritual object. By and by the image of the mate- 
rial object drops away almost entirely, and the word 
becomes a conventional sign for the spiritual thought 
and the mind forgets the sensuous meaning. This is 



312 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 

the passage from the symbolic to the conventional 
stage of the mind, and takes place at a well-defined 
epoch in the life of the child in modern civilization. 
In savage life it is never reached. The mind remains 
at the myth-making or sj^mbolic stage. 



(a) A great poet converts all things and events lying 
familiar about him in the vs^orld into tropes or similitudes, 
so that they lose their imposing airs of actuality, and be- 
come transparent images of ideas and spiritual truth. If 
he accomplishes so much as this by means of his tropes 
and personifications, he accomplishes far more than this 
by means of his entire poetic structures, for the individual 
tropes are only the brick and mortar of the poetic edi- 
fice. What the scientific principle is to isolated facts and 
events, the poetic structure is to the separate tropes and 
personifications. It organizes them into a whole. It con- 
nects them w^ith a central unity w^hich stands to them in 
the twofold relation of efficient and final cause, and is at 
once their origin and the final purpose for which they exist. 

(6) It may be said that the supreme object of a great 
poetic work of art is the production of a myth. A myth 
furnishes a poetic explanation for a class of phenomena 
observed in, the world. The poet that can see tropes in 
natural objects sees his way lighted by their converging 
rays to an underlying- unity. Under tropes of small com- 
pass lie more extensive tropes, which unite the former into 
a consistent whole. And as the poet's fundamental in- 
sight into the world is this, that the things and events of 
the world are means of spiritual expression, themselves 
moved and shaped by spiritual being, which they both hide 
and reveal, it follows that his combination of these poetic 
elements produces a whole structure that is spiritual 
throughout, and a revelation of human nature such as he 
has conceived and fitted to the world he has created. 

(c) The poet is eyes to the blind and ears to the deaf. 
He is intuition and reflection for all. For he furnishes his 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF INFANCY. 313 

people a view of the world in which they can all unite 
and build cities and civilizations. His inspired myth 
is recognised as the highest possession of the race, and 
implicit faith in it is demanded of all men. While it is 
permitted to deny the reality of existing facts and events, 
it is never permitted to deny the truth of the poetic myth 
which unites a people in one civilization. 

(d) Not only in poetic art, but in all art — sculpture, 
painting, music, and architecture — there is a seeking after 
rhythm, or after regularity, symmetry, and harmony, and 
a delight in them simply as such, as though they consti- 
tuted indubitable evidence of a rational cause identical in 
nature with the human mind that beholds it. What is 
consciousness but the rhythm of subject and object con- 
tinually distinguishing and continually recognising and 
identifying? In this are regularity and symmetry, and also 
harmony. There is the repetition involved in self-know- 
ing — the self being subject and likewise object — hence 
regularity. The shallowest mind, the child or the savage, 
delights in monotonous repetition, not possessing, how- 
ever, the slightest insight into the cause of his delight. 
To us the phenomenon is intelligible. W^e see that his 
perception is like a spark under a heap of smoking flax. 
There is little fire of conscious insight, but much smoke 
of pleasurable feeling. He feels rather than perceives the 
fact of the identity which exists in" form between the 
rhythm of his internal soul-activity and the sense-percep- 
tion by which he perceives regularity. 

(e) The sun-myth arises through the same feeling, 
illuminated by the poetic insight. Wherever there is 
repetition, especially in the form of revolution or return- 
to-itself, there comes this conscious or unconscious satis- 
faction at beholding it. Hence especially circular move- 
ment, or movement in cycles, is the most wonderful of all 
the phenomena beheld by primitive man. Nature presents 
to his observation infinite differences. Out of the con- 
fused mass he traces some forms of recurrence — day and 
night, the phases of the moon, the seasons of the year, 
genus and species in animals and plants, the apparent 



314 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 

revolutions of the fixed stars, and the orbits of planets. 
These phenomena furnish him symbols or types in which 
to express his ideas concerning the divine principle tnat 
he feels to be First Cause. To the materialistic student 
of sociolog-y all relig-ions are mere transfigured sun-myths; 
but to the deeper student of psychology it becomes clear 
that the sun-myth itself rests on the perception of identity 
between regular cycles and the rhythm which character- 
izes the activity of self-consciousness. And self-conscious- 
ness is felt and seen to be a form of being not on a level 
with mere transient, individual existence, but the essen- 
tial attribute of the Divine Being. 

(f) Here we see how deep-seated and significant is this 
blind instinct or feeling which is gratified by the seeing 
and hearing of mere regularity. The words which ex- 
press the divine in all languages root in this sense-percep- 
tion and in the aesthetic pleasure attendant on it. Philol- 
ogy, discovering the sun-myth origin of religious expres- 
sion, places the expression before the thing expressed, 
the symbol before the thing signified. It tells us that 
religions arise from a sort of disease in language which 
turns poetry into prose. But underneath the assthetic 
feeling lies the perception of identity which makes pos- 
sible the trope or metaphor. 

(g) In the poetic myth there is a collection of those 
phenomena which have astonished the primitive conscious- 
ness of the race, and impressed on the soul a deep feeling 
of awe. The activity of the mind with its regular and 
symmetrical recurrence or rhythm — the vibration between 
subject and object, its alternation of seizing an object at 
first new and unknown, and then recognising in it what is 
already become familiar, the alternation of subject and 
predicate, its self-estrangement and its removal — have not 
been recognised by primitive man as the characteristics of 
mind, but these phenomena of return-into-self have ex- 
cited his attention, and suggested first the far-off ques- 
tions of the cycle of the soul reaching beyond this life 
into the hereafter. 

(h) Of all nations, the Egyptians were the most in- 



I 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF INFANCY. 315 

clined to study these analogies of Nature. Because of the 
fact that the supreme natural circumstance in Egyptian 
life is the Nile, and its cycles of rise and fall alternating- 
with seedtime and harvest, this attention to cycles finds 
its natural occasion and explanation. The calendar and 
the signs of. the seasons of the year became objects of 
the utmost solicitude. By and by the poetic faculty seized 
on these phenomena and the doctrine of immortality was 
embodied in a myth for mankind. There is the still world 
of Amenii where the good Egyptian goes to dwell with 
Osiris. But the most highly gifted of all peoples in poetic 
insight were the Greeks. They possessed supreme ability 
in the interpretation of Nature as expression of spirit. 
All educated peoples since the Greeks have used their 
poetic myths in literature and art, and these have become 
conventional means of representing the life experiences 
of the soul.* 

§ 206. When the child possesses language and be- 
gins to inquire for names, begins to see ideals and to 
act to realize them, he can be helped greatly by the 
kindergarten method of instruction. It should be 
used first in the house by the mother and the nurse, 
and afterward in the school. The kindergarten wisely 
selects a series of objects that lead to the useful 
possession of certain geometric concepts and nu- 
merical concepts that assist in grasping all things in 
their inorganic aspects. It provides for his new per- 
ception of possibilities or ideals by setting him to 
work at building. It has a series of occupations — 

* Cf. my Spiritual Sense of Dante's Divina Commedia, 
pp. 122-128. 
23 



316 PSYCHOLOaiC FOUNDATIONS. 

building, stick-laying, drawing, perforating paper, 
embroidery, joining sticks by soaked peas, modelling 
in clay, weaving, etc. In all these the child finds re- 
lations to the fundamental geometric shapes that he 
has learned to know, and he sees Avith clearness and 
precision how to realize ideals. The kindergarten, 
in using the gifts and occupations, however, does not 
use the highest and best that Froebel has invented. 
The peculiar Froebel device is found in the plays and 
games. Froebel himself wrote the Mutter- und Kose- 
lieder, and explained them with his subtle philoso- 
phy. The child here in the plays and games, in 
which all join (pupils and teachers), ascends from 
the world of Nature to the world of humanity; from 
the world of things to the world of self -activity ; from 
the material and earthy to the spiritual. In the gifts 
and occupations he becomes conscious of his will as 
a power over matter to convert it to use and to make 
it the symbol of his ideals. But in such work he does 
not fully realize his spiritual sense, because he does 
not find anything in it to make him realize the dif- 
ference between his particular self and his general 
self. In the plays and games he becomes conscious 
of his social self, and there dawns the higher ideal 
of a self that is realized in institutions, over against 
the special self of the particular individual. 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF INFANCY. 317 

(a) In the song-s and pantomime the child uses his self- 
activity to reproduce for himself the doings of the world 
of society. He produces a reflection of this world of human 
life above him and repeats to himself its motives and its 
industries, putting himself in the place of the grown-up 
citizen and mimicking his mode of thinking* and acting. By 
this he attains the new consciousness of a higher self act- 
ing within his particular self and dictating the customary 
usages, the conventional forms of politeness, the fashions 
set for him to follow, and, above all, he begins to have a 
conscience. The conscience demands unconditional obedi- 
ence, the sacrifice not only of possessions but of life, too, 
in its behest. Here the child climbs up through his sym- 
bolic pathway through play to the absolute mind. He 
sees the ideal laws that are absolutely binding above all 
temporal considerations; he sees the moral law. The 
moral law is an entirely different thing from the laws of 
matter and motion. The latter relate to dead, inorganic 
substances moved from outside, and under fate. The 
former is the law of activity of spirit, the living, the 
human, the divine. It is the law of self-activity. No self- 
active being can retain its freedom or self-activity except 
by conforming to moral law. 

(6) The kindergarten does well when it teaches the 
gifts and occupations, for it deals with the world of means 
and instrumentalities, and helps the child to the conquest 
of Nature. It does better with the plays and games, be- 
cause these are thoroughly humane in their nature, and 
they offer to the child in a symbolic form a first version of 
the experience of the race in solving the problem of life. 
They make children wise without the conceit of wisdom. 

(c) The first self-revelation of the child is throug'h 
play. He learns by it what he can do, what he can do 
easily at first trial, and what he can do by perseverance 
and contrivance. Thus he learns through play to recog- 
nise the potency of those " lords of life " (as Emerson 
calls them) that weave the tissue of human experience — 
volition, making and unmaking, obstinacy of material, the 
magic of contrivance, the lordly might of perseverance 



318 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 

that can re-enforce the moment by the hours (and time 
hy eternity). The child in his games represents to him- 
self his kinship to the human race — his identity, as little 
self, with the social whole as his greater self. 

(d) The child is always outgrowing" his plaything's, 
always exhausting- the possibilities of a given object to 
represent or symbolize the occupations and deeds of 
grown-up humanity in the world about him. Were the 
child to arrest his development and linger contented over 
a doll or a hobby-horse, the result would be lamentable. 
Hence unmaking is as important as making to the child.* 
His destructive energy is as essential to him as his power 
of construction — a point often missed by kindergartners 
who have not penetrated Froebel's doctrine of inner con- 
nection in its third degree. 

(e) True inner development or education should pro- 
ceed from the symbolic to the aesthetic or artistic, from art 
to science, and from science to philosophy; for true art 
(including also poetry) is a higher form of " inner con- 
nection " than the merely symbolic, which constitutes the 
spiritual side of play. Again, science and philosophy are 
more advanced than art in the fact that they seize the 
inner connection directly and simply, while the symbolic 
form is only a suspicion or intimation of an inner con- 
nection, and art is only a personification or an illustration 
of it. 

§ 207. After the symbolic comes what is called 
the conventional. In his first stages of using lan- 
guage the child is just in the symbolic stage of cul- 
ture, and the kindergarten is exactly the kind of 

* Goethe has indicated this in his Wilhelm Meister by 
showing how the father, by a puppet show and a wrong 
policy in regard to it, made a lifelong impression on the 
mind of Wilhelm, and nearly arrested his growth at the 
puppet stage. 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF INFANCY. 319 

instruction best adapted to him. At the age of seven 
years, or in the beginning of the seventh year in 
some cases, the child has acquired this sense of higher 
individuality. Just as in the first attainment of the 
gift of speech the child learns to see all things as 
specimens of their universals, and to desire names for 
all things, so four or five years later he has acquired 
the humane culture which it was the object of the 
plays and games of Froebel to teach, and he now re- 
gards himself as a member of a social whole — in fact, 
as an individual having special duties to perform in 
the life of the whole. With the beginning of this 
consciousness the symbolic bent of the mind begins 
to yield place to a higher and more conscious form 
of intellectual and moral activity, and the child is 
ready for the methods of the primary school. The 
child, in fact, has arrived at a point where he needs 
instruments of self-help; he needs to master the con-, 
ventionalities of human learning; he needs to learn 
how to read and write, and how to record the results 
of arithmetic. 

(a) The human race uses arbitrary characters to repre- 
sent elementary sounds and combines them into words, 
a process of analysis and synthesis quite difficult for the 
child of the symbolic period of culture to master. With 
the acquirement of these arbitrary means of indicating- 
speech the child will have a new means of self-help alto- 
gether more wonderful than anj^thing- that he has before 



320 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 

learned. He will be able now to appeal from the oral 
and desultory statement or narrative to the printed page, 
which contains the well-considered and exhaustive results 
of all human experience near and remote. Once acquired, 
the child is emancipated from dependence on the leisure 
of others; he can now, at his own leisure, consult the 
experience of the race in so far as it exists in his lan- 
guage and in so far as he can master its special form 
of exposition. 

(6) This must be done by individual industry, and is 
an ethical deed quite distinct from the work of the child 
in the kindergarten. The child now feels the impulse of 
duty. Self-subordination to reasonable tasks is no longer 
play. He has arrived at the transition from play to work. 
He can now begin to be responsible to authority for the 
performance of them. Here we have the contrast of play 
and work. In play the child exercises his caprice. He 
sees possibilities and transforms things according to his 
arbitrary will. In this he learns his own power, the 
power of his selfhood, and thereby develops his individ- 
uality. When he acts under the direction of another he 
does not realize what is peculiarly his own causal energy. 
It is not his ideal, but the ideal of another that he 
realizes. 

(c) It is very important not to force on the child, in 
the symbolic stage of his culture — say from four to six 
years of age — the ideals of others in the details of his 
work, for that will produce arrested development, and he 
will not have the vivid sense of personality that he ought 
to have. The kindergarten method encourages spontane- 
ity, and thus protects the fountains of his originality. 

(d) At the age of seven years the average child begins 
to tire of mere caprice, having gained, through play, the 
essential development of his originality. It is now at- 
tracted toward work or the exercise of the will along the 
lines of rational activity, or prescribed by established 
authority. This is work. While the kindergarten should 
lay stress on the form of play, and give the child oppor- 
tunity to develop his spontaneity, the primary school must 



THE COUESE OF STUDY IN SCHOOLS. 321 

lay stress on the form of work, and lay down definite tasks 
for the i^upil to perform by his own industry. 

(e) By language the child rises from an animal indi- 
viduality to a human individuality. By realizing his mem- 
bership in society and conforming his deeds to the general 
standard, he develops a higher spiritual individuality. This, 
as we have seen, is the object of the kindergarten plays 
and games. When it is achieved, the method of play gives 
place to the method of work; the symbolic yields to the 
conventional; the kindergarten methods to the methods 
of the primary school. (See Dr. N. M. Butler, on The 
Meaning of Infancy and Education, Educational Eeview, 
1897, p. 73.) 



CHAPTEK XXXVI. 

Psychology of the Course of Study in Schools, 
Elemeyitary , Secondary, and Higher, 

§ 208. In the elementary course, completed in the 
first eight years of school life (say from six to four- 
teen years of age) the pupil has acquired the con- 
ventional branches of common English. Reading, 
writing, arithmetic — the so-called '' three R's " — 
grammar, geography, and United States history, fur- 
nish him the necessary disciplines that enable him 
to take up the rudiments of human experience; they 
give him a mastery over the technical elements which 
enter the practical theories of human life. 



322 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 

(a) There are five windows of the soul, which open 
out upon five great divisions of the life of man. Two of 
these relate to man's comprehension and conquest over 
Nature, the realm of time and space. Arithmetic furnishes 
the survey of whatever has the form of time; all series 
and successions of individuals, all quantitative multiplici- 
ty being" mastered by the aid of the art of reckoning. 
Through the geographical window of the soul the survey 
extends to organic and inorganic Nature. The surface 
of the earth, its concrete relations to man as his habitat 
and as the producer of his food, clothing, and shelter, and 
the means of intercommunication which unite the de- 
tached fragments of humanity into one grand man — all 
these important matters are introduced to the pupil 
through the study of geography, and spread out as a 
panorama before the second window of the soul. 

(6) Three other departments or divisions of human 
life lie before the view. Human life is revealed in the his- 
tory — civil, social, and religious — of peoples. The study of 
the history of one's native country in the elementary school 
opens the window of the soul which looks out upon the 
spectacle of the will power of his nation. In the language 
of a people are revealed the internal logical laws or struc- 
tural framework of its intellect and the conscious realiza- 
tion of the mind of the race, as they appear in the vocabu- 
lary, grammatical laws, or syntax. Grammar opens to 
the child his view of the inner workings of the mind of 
the race, and helps him in so far to a comprehension of 
his own spiritual self. Literature, finally, is the most 
accessible, as well as the fullest and completest expression 
of the sentiments, opinions, and convictions of a people; 
of their ideals, longings, aspirations. The fifth window 
of the soul looks out upon this revelation of human nature 
through literature. The study of literature commences 
with the child's first reader, and continues through his 
school course, until he learns, by means of the selections 
from the poets and prose writers in the higher readers, 
the best and happiest expression for those supreme mo- 
ments of life felt and described first by men of genius, 



THE COURSE OF STUDY IN SCHOOLS. 323 

and left as a rich heritage to all their fellows. Their less 
gifted brethren may, by the aid of their common mother 
tongue, participate with them in the enjoyment of their 
insights. 

(c) The studies of the school fall naturally into these 
five co-ordinate groups: first, mathematics and physics; 
second, biology, including chiefly the plant and the ani- 
mal; third, literature and art, including chiefly the study 
of literary works of art; fourth, grammar and the tech- 
nical and scientific study of language, leading to such 
branches as logic and psychology; fifth, history and the 
study of sociological, political, and social institutions. 
Each one of these groups should be represented in the 
curriculum of the schools at all times by some topic 
suited to the age and previous training of the pupil. 

§ 209. The first stage of school education is edu- 
cation for culture, and education for the purpose of 
gaining command of the conventionalities of intelli- 
gence. These conventionalities are such arts as read- 
ing and writing, the use of figures, technicalities of 
maps, dictionaries, the art of drawing, and all those 
semi-mechanical facilities which enable the child 
to get access to the intellectual conquests of the race. 
Later on, when the pupil passes out of his elementary 
studies, which partake more of the nature of prac- 
tice than of theory, he comes in the secondary school 
and the college to the study of science and the tech- 
nique necessary for its preservation and communica- 
tion. ,A11 these things belong to the first stage of 
school instruction whose aim is culture. On the 
other hand, post-graduate work and the work of pro- 



324 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 

fessional schools have not the aim of culture so much 
as the aim of fitting the person for a special voca- 
tion. In the post-graduate work of universities the 
demand is for original investigation in special fields. 
In the professional school the student masters the 
elements of a particular practice^ learning its theory 
and its art. 

It is in the first stage, the schools for culture, that 
these five co-ordinate branches should be represented in 
a symmetrical manner. On the other hand, a course of 
university study — that is to say, vs^hat is called post- 
graduate work — and the professional school should be 
specialized. But specializing should follow^ a course of 
study for culture in which the whole of human learning 
and the whole of the soul has been considered. From 
the primary school, therefore, on through the academic 
course of the college there should be symmetry, and the 
five co-ordinate groups of studies should be represented 
at each part of the course — at least in each year, although 
perhaps not throughout each part of the year. 

§ 210. All activities of man have a psychological 
coefiicient. There is some special category of the 
mind employed in each operation. In forming the 
course of study experience has discovered, one after 
another, the branches of study needed to open the 
five Avindows of the soul. The psychology of edu- 
cation should point out the categories involved in 
each of these studies, as well as show their objective 
scope and significance. First, the categories of qual- 



THE COURSE OF STUDY IN SCHOOLS. 325 

itj and quantity are used in the two I^ature studies, 
arithmetic and geography. In quantity, the first 
stage of the understanding is active (see Chapter 
XXVII), and abstract equality and difference are 
seized, but in quality the second stage is active; for 
quality (in the philosophic sense) means dependence 
on others, or relativity — thing as determined through 
its environment (see § 146). In grammar, introspec- 
tion is the chief mental operation; one must go be- 
hind the form of the word to its meaning, and then 
go behind the particular meaning to the part of 
speech — that is to say, behind the content of the 
meaning to its form; and both content and form of 
meaning are objects of introspection alone; they are 
concepts and categories. While grammar deals with 
the category of self-activity as revealed in language, 
history deals with it as will, and especially as the will 
of the social aggregate. Literature and art also deal 
with the same category in its third phase — namely, 
its symbol-making activity. 

(a) Commencing- with the outlook of the child upon 
the world of Nature, arithmetic or mathematical study 
furnishes the first scientific key to the existence of bodies 
and their various motions. Mathematics in its pure form 
as arithmetic, algebra, g-eometry, and the application of 
the analytical method, as well as mathematics applied to 
matter and force, or statics and dynamics, furnishes us 
the peculiar study that gives to us, whether as children 



826 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 

or as men, the command of Nature in this its quantitative 
aspect. Mathematics furnishes the instrument, the tool 
of thought which we wield in this realm. But useful, or 
even essential, as this mathematical or quantitative study 
is for this first aspect of Nature, it is limited to it, and 
should not be applied to the next phase of Nature, which 
is that of organic life. That needs another category; for 
we must not study in the growth of the plant simply the 
mechanical action of forces, but we must subordinate 
everything quantitative and mathematical to the princi- 
ple of life, or movement according to internal purpose 
or design. The principle of life, or biology, is no substi- 
tute, on the other hand, for the mathematical or quanti- 
tative study. The forces, heat, light, electricity, mag- 
netism, galvanism, gravitation, inorganic matter — all these 
things are best studied from the mathematical point of 
view. The superstitious savage, however, imposes upon 
the inorganic world the principle of biology. He sees the 
personal effort of spirits in winds and storms, in fire and 
flowing streams. He substitutes for mathematics the 
principle of life, and looks in the movement of inanimate 
things for an indwelling soul. This is the animistic 
standpoint of human culture — the substitution of the bio- 
logic method of looking at the world for the quantitative 
or mathematical view. 

(h) The second group includes the study of whatever 
is organic in Nature — especially studies relating to the 
plant and the animal — the growth of material for food 
and clothing, and in a large measure for means of trans- 
portation and culture. This study of the organic phase 
of Nature forms a great portion of the branch of study 
known as geography in the elementary school. Geography 
takes up also some of the topics that belong to the mathe- 
matical or quantitative view of Nature, but it takes them 
up into a new combination with a view to show how they 
are related to organic life — to creating and supplying the 
needs of the plant, animal, and man. The mathematical 
or quantitative appears in geography as subordinated to 
the principle of organic life. For the quantitative — name- 



THE COURSE OF STUDY IN SCHOOLS. 327 

ly, inorganic matter and the forces of the solar system — 
appear as presu^jpositions of life. Life uses this as mate- 
rial out of which to organize its structures. The plant 
builds itself a structure of vegetable cells, transmuting 
what is inorganic into vegetable tissue; so, too, the ani- 
mal builds over organic and inorganic substances, draw- 
ing from the air and water and from inorganic salts and 
acids, and by use of heat, light, and electricity converting 
vegetable tissue into animal tissue. The revelation of 
the life principle in plant and animal is not a mathematical 
one; it is not a mechanism moved by pressure from with- 
out, or by attraction from within; it is not a mere con- 
course of atoms or an aggregation, or anything of that sort. 
In so far as it is organic there is a formative principle 
which originates motion and modifies by its self-activity 
the inorganic materials and the mere dynamic forces of 
Nature, giving them special form and direction, so as to 
build up vegetable or animal structures. 

(c) The first study relating to human nature, as con- 
trasted with mere organic and inorganic nature, is litera- 
ture. Literature, as the fifth and highest of the fine arts, 
reveals human nature in its intrinsic form. It may be 
said, in general, that a literary work of art, a poem, 
whether lyric, dramatic, or epic, or a prose work of art, 
such as a novel or a drama, reveals human nature by 
showing the growth of a feeling or sentiment first into 
a conviction and then into a deed: feelings, thoughts, and 
deeds are thus connected in such a way as to explain the 
complete genesis of human action. INIoreover, in a liter- 
ary work of art there is a revelation of man as a member 
of social institutions. Its theme is usually an attack of 
the individual upon some one of the social institutions of 
which he is a member — namely, a collision with the family, 
the state, civil society, or the Church. This collision 
furnishes an occasion for either a comic or tragic solution. 
The nature of the individual and of his evolution of feel- 
ing into thoughts and deeds is shown vividly upon the 
background of institutions and social life. The work of 
art, whether music, painting, sculpture, or architecture, 



328 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 

belongs to the same group as literature, and it is obvious 
that the method in which the work of art should be 
studied is not the method adopted as applicable to in- 
organic nature or to organic nature. And, too, the physi- 
ology of a plant or an animal, and the habits and modes 
of growth and peculiarities of action on the part of plants 
and animals, are best comprehended by a different method 
of study from that which should be employed in study- 
ing the work of art. The work of art has a new princi- 
ple, one that transcends mere life. It is the principle of 
responsible individuality and the principle of free subordi- 
nation on the part of the individual to the ordinances of a 
social whole. It is, in fact, the exercise of original respon- 
sibility in opposition to social order, and the consequent 
retribution or other reaction, that makes the content of 
the work of art. Arithmetic and geography are not substi- 
tutes for literature. A purely mathematical treatment, 
or a biological treatment, of a work of art would be inept. 
Such methods can enter into a consideration of works of 
art only in a very subordinate degree. It would be equally 
absurd to attempt to apply the method in which a work 
of art should be studied to the study of an organic form 
or to the study of inorganic matter and forces. 

(d) The next co-ordinate branch includes grammar 
and studies allied to it, such as logic and psychology. 
In the elementary school we have only grammar. Gram- 
mar treats of the structure of language; there is a 
mechanical or formal side to it in orthography. But 
one can not call grammar in a peculiar sense a formal 
study any more than he can apply the same epithet to one 
of the natural sciences. Natural science deals with the 
laws of material bodies and forces. Laws are forms of 
acting or of being, and yet by far the most important 
content of natural science is stated in the laws which it 
has discovered. Thus Nature studies are formal. So 
in the studies that relate to man the forms of human 
speech are very important. All grammatical studies 
require a twofold attitude of the mind: one toward the 
sign and one toward the signification; the shape of a 



THE COURSE OF STUDY IN SCHOOLS. 329 

letter or the form of a word or the peculiarity of a 
vocal utterance, these must be attended to, but they 
must be at once subordinated to the significance of the 
hidden thoug-ht which has become revealed by the sig-n 
or utterance. The complexity of grammatical study is 
seen at once from this point of view. It is a double act 
of the will focusing the attention upon two different phases 
at once — namely, upon the natural phase and the spiritual 
phase — and the fusion of the two in one. Looking at this 
attitude of the mind, at this method of grammatical 
studj^ we see at once how different it is from the atti- 
tude of the mind in the study of a work of art. In gram- 
mar we should not look to an evolution of a feeling into 
a thought or a deed; that would be entirely out of place. 
But we must give attention to the literal and prosaic 
word, written or spoken, and consider it as an expression 
of a thought. We must note the structure of the intel- 
lect as revealed in this form. The word is a part of 
speech, having some one of the many functions which the 
word can fulfil in expressing a thought. Deeper down 
than grammatical structure is the logical structure, and 
this is a more fundamental revelation of the action of pure 
mind. Logic is, in fact, a part of psychology (see Chapters 
IX, X, XI). Opening from one door toward another, we 
pass on our way from orthography, etymology, and syn- 
tax to logic and psychology. All the way we use the 
same method; we use the sign or manifestation as a 
means of discovering the thought and the classification 
of the thought. The method of grammar leads to in- 
sight into the nature of reason itself; it is this insight 
which it gives us into our methods of thinking and of 
uttering our thoughts that furnishes the justification for 
grammar as one of the leading studies in the curricu- 
lum. Its use in teaching correct speaking and writing is 
always secondary to this higher use, which is to make 
conscious in man the structure of his thinking and ex- 
pression. Important as it is, however, when it is substi- 
tuted for the method of studying art it becomes an abuse. 
It is a poor way to study Shakespeare, Milton, Chaucer, 



330 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 

and the Bible to grammatically parse them or analyze 
them, or to devote the time to their philological peculiari- 
ties, the history of the development of their lang-uag-e, or 
such matters. Nor is the proper method of studying" the 
work of art a substitute for that in grammar; it does not 
open the windows of the mind toward the logical, philo- 
logical, or psychological structure of human thought and 
action. 

(e) There is a fifth co-ordinate group of studies— 
namely, that of history. History looks to the formation of 
the state as the chief of human institutions. The devel- 
opment of states, the collisions of individuals with the 
state, the collisions of the states with one another — these 
form its topic. The method of historic study is different 
from that in g-rammatical study, and also from that 
in the study of literary and other works of art. Still 
more different is the method of history from those em- 
ployed in the two groups of studies relating to Nature — 
namely, the mathematical and biological methods. In biol- 
ogy the whole animal is not fully revealed in each of his 
members, although, as stated in Kant's definition, each 
part is alike the means and the end for all the others. 
The higher animals and plants show the greatest differ- 
ence between parts and whole. But in history it is the 
opposite: the lower types exhibit the greatest difference 
between the social whole and the individual citizen. The 
progress in history is toward freedom of the individual 
and local self-government. In the highest organisms of 
the state, therefore, there is a greater similarity between 
the individual and the national whole to which he belongs. 
The individual takes a more active part in governing him- 
self. The state becomes more and more an instrument 
of self-government in his hands. In the lowest states 
the gigantic personality of the social whole is all in all, 
and the individual personality is null except in the su- 
preme ruler and the few associated with him. The method 
of history keeps its gaze fixed upon the development of the 
social whole and the progress which it makes in realizing 
within its citizens the freedom of the whole. This method, 



THE COURSE OF STUDY IN SCHOOLS. 331 

it is evident enoug-h, is different from those in literature 
and grammar, dift'erent also from the biological and the 
mathematical methods. In history we see how the little 
selves or individuals unite to form the big' self or the 
nation. The analogies to this found in biology — namely, 
the combination of individual cells into the entire vege- 
table or animal organism — are all illusive so far as fur- 
nishing a clew to the process of human history. 

(f) It has been asked whether drawing does not be- 
long to a separate group in the course of study, and 
whether manual training is not a study co-ordinate with 
history and grammar. There are a number of branches 
of study, such as vocal music, drawing, manual training, 
gymnastics, and the like, which ought to be taught in 
every well-regulated school; but they will easily find a 
place within the five groups so far as their intellectual 
coefficients are concerned. Drawing, for instance, may 
belong, like music, to art or sesthetics on one side, but 
practically it is partly physical training with a view to 
skill in the hand and eye, and partly mathematical with 
a view to the production of geometric form. As a physical 
training its rationale is to be found in physiology, and 
hence it belongs in this respect to the second phase of 
the study of Nature. As relating to the production of 
form, it belongs to geometry and trigonometry and arith- 
metic, or the first phase of Nature," the inorganic. As 
relating to art or the aesthetic, it belongs to the third 
group of studies, within which literature is the main dis- 
cipline. But besides literature there are architecture, 
sculpture, painting, and music to be included in the 
aesthetic or art group of studies. Manual training, on 
the other hand, relates to the transformation of material, 
such as wood or stone or other minerals, into structures for 
human use. It is clear enough that the rationale of all this 
is to be found in applied mathematics; hence manual 
training does not furnish a nev^^ principle different from 
that found in the first or the second study relating to 
Nature. But it has an important psychological coefficient 
so far as it relates to the preparation for one's vocation 
24 



332 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 

and the ability to support one's self in economical inde- 
pendence (see § 184). 

(g) School instruction is given to the acquirement of 
techniques— the technique of reading" and writing; of 
mathematics; of grammar, geographj^ history, literature, 
and science in general. One is astonished when he reflects 
upon it, at first, to see how much is meant by this word 
technique. All products of human reflection are defined 
and preserved by words used in a technical sense. The 
vs^ords are taken out of their colloquial sense, which is 
a loose one, except when employed as slang; for slang 
is a spontaneous effort in popular speech to form tech- 
nical terms. The technical or conventional use of signs 
and symbols enables us to write words and to record 
mathematical calculations; the technical use of w^ords 
enables us to express clearly and definitely the ideas and 
relations of all science. Outside of technique all is vague 
hearsay. The fancy pours into the words it hears such 
meanings as its feelings prompt. Instead of science there 
is superstition. The school deals wdth technique in this 
broad sense of the word. The mastery of this technique 
of reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, and history 
lifts the pupil on to a plane of freedom and self-help 
hitherto not known to him. He can now by his own effort 
master for himself the wisdom of the race. By the aid 
of such instruments as the family education has given 
him he can not master that wisdom, but only pick up a 
few of its results, such as the customs of his community 
preserve. By the process of hearsay and oral inquiry it 
v^ould take the individual a lifetime to acquire what he 
can get in six months by aid of the instruments which 
the school places in his hands; for the school gives the 
youth the tools of thought. 

§ 211. Secondary instruction in liigli schools and 
academies continues the traditional course of study 
on the lines marked out already in the elementary 
schools. 



THE COURSE OF STUDY IN SCHOOLS. 333 

(a) The five provinces which a rational insight into 
the world of Nature and the world of man discovers are 
represented, as we have seen, in the course of study in 
the elementary school. They are also carefully provided 
for in the high school. Arithmetic and geography, sci- 
ences that relate to Nature (organic and inorganic), are 
found in the common school. The high school continues 
these by more advanced studies following in the same 
line: algebra and geometry, physical geography, and nat- 
iiral philosophy (or physics). The mathematical studies 
treat of time and space, the abstract possibility of exist- 
ences in Nature. Arithmetic and algebra concern the form 
of time; geometry that of space in general; trigonome- 
try, the measurement of space by means of the triangle. 
Physical g'eography, so named in the current text-books 
for hig'h schools, gives a survey of organic nature in 
general, being a compend of ethnology, zoology, botany, 
geology, meteorology, and astronomy; the total comjjlex 
of Nature viewed as an organism or systematic process. 
Natural philosophy and chemistry (physics, molar and 
molecular), take a survey of the elements and the forces 
and their quantitative manifestation. 

(h) Besides the two divisions of the world of Nature 
into organic and inorganic, there are three divisions of 
the world of man or human life, as w§ have already seen. 
These three divisions of the world of man are rei^resented 
in the high-school course by universal history, and some 
study of the framework of constitutional government, 
for the will side of man; the study of Latin, Greek, some 
modern language, rhetoric, mental or moral philosophy, 
for the theoretical side of man; the study of the history 
of English literature, of Shakespeare, and other standard 
writers, and the literary contents of the Latin, Greek,* 

* In Chapter XXXIII the reason has been given for 
the extended study of Latin and Greek in secondary and 
higher education. Our civilization is derivative from Rome 
and Greece, and must be studied in its genesis (its " em- 



334 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 

French, or German lang-uag-es selected, and perhaps some 
general or special study of the history of the fine arts, 
architecture, sculpture, painting-, and music, for the aes- 
thetic side of man. 

§ 212. Higher instruction continues on the five 
lines marked out for elementary and secondary in- 
struction, taking up such branches as (a) higher 
mathematical studies and their applications in phys- 
ics ; (h) the several sciences that contribute to a knowl- 
edge of the processes of the earth and of organic 
beings (geology, biology, meteorology, etc.); (c) 
ancient and modern languages, comparative philol- 
ogy, logic, philosophy; (d) political economy and 
sociology, moral philosophy, philosophy of civil his- 
tory, constitutional history; (e) philosophy and his- 
tory of art, literature, and rhetoric. 

(a) The elementary course of study is adapted to the 
first eight years of school life, say from the age of six 
to that of fourteen years. That course of study deals 
chiefly with giving the child a mastery over the symbols 
of reading, writing, and arithmetic, and the technical 
words in which are expressed the distinctions of arith- 
metic, geography, grammar, and history. The child has 
not yet acquired much knowledge of human nature, nor 
of the world of things and forces about him. He has 
a tolerably quick grasp of isolated things and events. 



bryology ") in order to be understood. If we do not com- 
prehend the origin of the network of customs and usages 
in which we live, we yield to it a blind obedience, whereas 
insig-ht converts it into a rational obedience. 



THE COURSE OF STUDY IN SCHOOLS. 335 

but he has very small power of synthesis. He can not 
combine in his little mind thing-s and events so as to 
perceive whole processes. It is the business of the school 
to induct him by easy steps into these things. He can 
not perceive the principles and laws underlying" the 
thing-s and events which are broug"ht under his notice. 
He consequently is not able to get much insight into the 
trend of human affairs, or to draw logical conclusions 
from convictions or ideas. It is a necessary characteristic 
of primary or elementary instruction that it must take 
the world of human learning in fragments, and fail to 
give its pupils an insight into the interrelation of things. 
It is the constant effort of good teaching to correct this 
defect. But, after all, the beginnings must have this 
character, because they are beginnings. The child's im- 
maturity is not the only reason. Even adults, on com- 
mencing a study, get but a few elements at first, and only 
later come to see each element in the light of the whole. 
But there is a great difference between the teacher who 
requires only isolated details of his pupils and the one 
who directs their attention toward the relations and inter- 
dependencies from the beginning. The true teaching aims 
always to strengthen the power of seizing relations. It 
cultivates the power of thought. 

(&) The education of high schopls, academies, and 
preparatory schools— what we call secondary schools — ■ 
begins to correct this inadequacy of elementary educa- 
tion. It begins to see things and events as parts of pro- 
cesses, and to understand their significance by tracing 
them back into their causes and forward into their results. 
While elementary education begins with isolated things, 
and finds shallow relations, secondary education deals with 
the deeper and more essential relations of things and 
events. It studies forces and laws, and the mode and 
manner in which things are fashioned and events accom- 
plished. To turn off from occupation with dead results 
and to come to the investigation of the living process 
of production is a great step. Where the pupil in the ele- 
mentary school studies arithmetic and solves problems in 



336 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 

particular numbers, the secondary pupil studies alg-ebra 
and solves problems in general terms. Each alg-ebraic 
formula is a rule for the jJerformance ox an indefinite num- 
ber of arithmetical examples. In geometry, the second- 
ary pupil learns necessary relations of spatial forms. 
In general history, he studies the collisions of one nation 
with another, and learns to interpret all the events in 
the light of the principle involved in the struggle. In 
science, he learns the forms and relations of Nature's phe- 
nomena. In the study of foreign languages he notes the 
variations of vs^ords to indicate relations of syntax; he 
investigates the structure of language, in which is re- 
vealed the degree of consciousness of the people who 
made that language. 

(c) But secondary education does not connect in any 
adequate manner the intellect and the will. It does not 
convert intellectual perceptions into rules of action. This 
is left for hig'her education. A principle of action is 
always a summing up of a series. Things and events 
have been inventoried and relations have been canvassed. 
Now the result must be summed up: " In view of all these 
data, a reasonable course of action is this or that " (see 
§ 242). The conclusion must be reached, and then the 
will can act. If we act without summing up the results 
of inventory and reflection, our act will be a lame one. It 
is the glory of higher education that it lays chief stress on 
the comparative method of study; that it makes phi- 
losophy its leading discipline; that it gives an ethical 
bent to all its branches of study. Higher education seeks 
as its first goal the unity of human learning. Then 
in its second stage it specializes. It first studies each 
branch in the light of all others. It studies each branch 
in its history. A definition of science, already offered in 
preceding chapters, is, that it unites facts in such a way 
that each fact throM^s light on all facts and all facts throw 
light on .each fact. The best definition of that part of 
higher education that is found in the college is, that it 
teaches the unity of human learning. It shows how all 
branches form a connected whole, and what each con- 



THE COURSE OF STUDY IN SCHOOLS. 33Y 

tributes to the explanation of the others. This has well 
been called the course in philosophy. After the course in 
philosophy comes the selection of a specialty; for there 
is not much danger of distorted views when one has seen 
the vision of the whole system of human learning'. Higher 
education can not possibly be given to the person of 
immature age. A college that gave the degree of bachelor 
of arts to students of eighteen years would give only a 
secondary course of education after all; for it would find 
itself forced to use the methods of instruction that char- 
acterize the secondary school. The serious tone of mind, 
the earnest attitude which inquires for the significance 
of a study to the problem of life, can not be expected in 
the normally developed student from fourteen to eighteen 
years of age. 

(d) The youth of proper age to enter on higher edu- 
cation has already experienced much of human life, and 
has arrived at the point where he begins to feel the neces- 
sity for a regulative principle, or a principle that shall 
guide him in deciding the endless questions which press 
upon him for settlement. Taking the youth at this epoch, 
when he begins to inquire for a principle, the college gives 
him a compend of human experience. It shows him the 
verdict of the earliest and latest great thinkers upon the 
meaning of the world. It gives him the net result of 
human opinion as to the trend of history. It gathers into 
one focus the results of the vast labours of specialists in 
natural science, history, jurisprudence, philology, political 
science, and moral philosophy. If the bachelor of arts 
is not acquainted with more than the elements of these 
multifarious branches of human learning, yet he is all 
the more impressed by their bearing upon the conduct 
of life. He sees their function in the totality, although 
he may not be an expert in the methods of investigation 
in any one of them. 

(c) For the reason that higher education makes the 
ethical insig'ht its first object, its graduates generally hold 
the place in the community at large of spiritual monitors. 
They exercise a directive power altogether disproportion- 



338 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 

ate to their number.* They lead in the three learned 
jirofessions, and they lead in the manag-ement of educa- 
tion of all kinds. They do much to correct the one-sided 
tendencies of elementary education, and to furnish the 
wholesome centripetal forces that hold in check the ex- 
travagances of the numerous self-educated people who 
have gone off in special directions after leaving the ele- 
mentary school. 

(f) The person who has had merely an elementary 
schooling has laid stress on the mechanical means of cul- 
ture — on the arts of reading, writing, computing, and the 
like. He has trained his mind for the acquirement of iso- 
lated details. But he has not been disciplined in compara- 
tive studies. He has not learned how to compare each 
fact with other facts, and still less how to compare each 
science with other sciences. He has not inquired as to 
the trend of his science as a whole, nor has he asked as 
to its imperfections which need correction from the stand- 
point of other sciences. He has not yet entertained the 
question as to its bearing on the conduct of life. He has 
not yet learned the difference between knowledge and 
wisdom, or, what is better, the method of converting 
knowledge into wisdom; for it is the best description of 
the higher course of study to say that its aim is to con- 
vert knowledge into wisdom — to shovs^ how to discern the 
bearing of all departments of knowledge upon each. It is 



* Dr. Charles F. Thwing, President of Western Reserve 
College (Ohio), found the following ratio by counting the 
college graduates that were of distinction enough to secure 
a place in Appletons' Cyclopaedia of Biography: Out of the 
aggregate of 15,138 biographies given, there were 5,322 be- 
longing to college graduates — a result showing that one 
out of every forty graduates and one out of ten thousand 
non-graduates of the entire population reached the degree 
of distinction in question. The proportion is in favour 
of the college men in the ratio of two hundred and fifty 
to one. 



THE COURSE OF STUDY IN SCHOOLS. 339 

evident that the individual who has received only an ele- 
mentary education is at great disadvantage as compared 
with the person who has received a higher education in 
the college or university, making all allowances for the 
imperfections of existing institutions. The individual is 
prone to move on in the same direction and in the same 
channel which he has taken under the guidance of his 
teacher. Very few persons change their methods after 
they leave school. Hence the importance of reaching the 
influence of the method of higher education before one 
closes his school career. 

(g) All the influences of the university, its distin- 
guished professors, its venerable reputation, the organiza- 
tion of the students and professors as an institutional 
whole, combined with the isolation of the student from 
the strong ties of the home and the home community — all 
these taken together are able to effect this change in 
method when brought to bear upon a youth for four 
years. He acquires an attitude of mind which may be 
best described as critical and comparative. It is at the 
same time conservative: he has learned to expect that an 
existing institution may have deeper grounds for its being 
than apj)ear at first sight; while, on the other hand, the 
mind trained in elementary and secondary methods is 
easily surprised and captivated by superficial considera- 
tions, and has small power of resistance against shallow, 
critical views. It is easily swept away by a specious 
argument for reform. It is true that the duller common- 
place intellect that has received only an elementary edu- 
cation is apt to follow use and wont and not question the 
established order. It is the brighter class of minds, that 
stop with the elementary school, which become agitators 
in the bad sense of the term. The commonplace intellect 
has no adaptability, or at least small power of readjust- 
ment, in view of new circumstances. The disuse of hand 
labour and the adoption of machine labour, for instance, 
finds the common workman unable to substitute brain 
labour for hand labour, and he remains in the path of 
poverty, wending his way to the almshouse. Our numer- 



340 



PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 



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THE PSYCHOLOGY OF QUANTITY. 34I 

ous self-educated men, of whom we are proud, are quite 
apt to be persons who have never advanced beyond ele- 
mentary methods. Very often . they are men of great 
accumulations in the way of isolated scraps of informa- 
tion, having" memory pouches unduly developed. They 
lay stress on some insignificant phase of human affairs. 
They advocate with great vigour tlie importance of some 
local centre, some partial human interest, as the chief 
object of all life. They remind us of an astronomer who 
opposes the heliocentric theory, and favours the claim 
of some planet or satellite as the true centre. Notwith- 
standing, we admire the brave men who, deprived of leisure 
for school education, continue through life their struggle 
to master the world of learning. With the increase of 
books, and especially of the class of books which reveal 
the method of scientific investigation, the student needs 
less oral instruction. 

(h) The general conspectus on page 340 shows how the 
branches of study are to be arranged so as to retain at 
all times the five co-ordinate divisions required by psy- 
chology for symmetrical culture of the mind. 



CHAPTER XXXYII. 

'The Psychology of Quantity. 

§ 213. There are two extremes in tlie course of 
study, mathematics and literature. The former deals 
with everything in a mechanical aspect, while the 
latter deals with human life in its highest forms. 

In this and the next chapter I attempt to show briefly 
the psychological basis of these extremes. 



34:2 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 

§ 214. All school studies tliat deal with mathe- 
matics and physics necessarily involve a use of the 
category of quantity. What is the first origin of 
this category of quantity? Quantity is opposed to 
quality as well as to self-activity (that is, to the form 
of external perception and to the form of internal 
perception, see Chapters II and III), and yet it pre- 
supposes both and participates in both. In the cate- 
gory of quality each thing is limited by an environ- 
ment different in kind from itself. In quantity 
each unit of number, extension, or degree has an 
environment of the same kind. Its other is like 
itself, whereas in quality everything is regarded as 
different from the others. Thus, while quality is 
the category of difference, quantity is the category 
of indifference. We can not count objects except 
in so far as we abstract from their difference. We 
can count one, two, three oxen, but we can not 
say that one ox, one sheep, and one tree are three 
oxen, or three sheep, or three trees; but we can 
say that they are three things, three objects, three 
existences, or three units of any general class that 
includes them all. We must abstract from their 
quality and go back to a common class indifferent 
to their special characteristics in order to count them. 
So, too, of all extensive magnitude. We must regard 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF QUANTITY. 343 

the mass as made up of similar units of extension. 
It must be homogeneous, in short, or we can not 
measure it as one extension. Take together a cubic 
yard of wood and the same amount of sand, and 
we do not have two cubic yards of sand or of 
wood; but we do have two cubic yards of mate- 
rial substance or two cubic yards of volume. There 
must be some common genus or species, and repeti- 
tion of the same individual in order to have quan- 
tity at all. 

(a) The reason why it requires a higher activity of 
thought to think quantity and understand mathematics 
than it does to perceive quality (or things and environ- 
ments) lies right in this point. The thought of quantity 
is a double thought. It first thinks quality and then 
negates it or thinks it away. In other words, it abstracts 
from quality. It first thinks thing and environment 
(quality), and then thinks both as the same in kind or 
as repetitions of the same. A thing becomes a unit when 
it is repeated so that it is within an environment of dupli- 
cates of itself. 

(&) Take the idea of quality and rise out of it to quan- 
tit3^ First consider one thing opposed to an environ- 
ment different from it. Then consider the environment 
as another thing, opposed again to its environment, which 
again is another thing. At once we have a congeries of 
things limiting each other, but not qualitatively. We 
have reached quantity, and have mutual exclusion of 
parts; but also complete continuity of parts, because all 
are repetitions of the same, and extension or number is 
present. In quantity we have repetitions of the same unit, 
and then again the sum or the whole is a unit because all 
are homogeneous. 



344 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 

§ 215. Quantity is a ratio of the two units, the 
constituent units being the first, and the whole or 
sum which they make being the second unit. The 
difficulties in the study of mathematics increase just 
in proportion to the explicitness of this ratio — that 
is to say, the higher mathematics deals more with the 
ratio and less with the terms of the ratio, while ele- 
mentary mathematics deals more with the terms of 
this ratio. Elementary arithmetic begins with nu- 
meration, or counting, in which the unit of the sum 
is merely stated in terms of the constituent unit. 

(a) Seventeen (17) is a whole unit or unity composed 
of seventeen repetitions of the constituent unit. In addi- 
tion we find the sum or unity of different numbers or sums 
by counting- them together, and use remembered count- 
ings to facilitate the process. In subtraction we find a 
constituent sum from a higher sum, retracing the process 
of addition. In multiplication the constituent sums are 
identical, and hence they resemble the constituent units. 
The process of obtaining the result is facilitated by re- 
membered multiplications or repetitions of sums — the mul- 
tiplication table. Division is the facilitated process of re- 
peated subtractions in order to ascertain the constituent 
sums. Involution and evolution, dealing with powers and 
roots, are forms of multiplication or division in which the 
sum is both constituent unit and unity; or, in other words, 
the factors are both the same number, and we have a sort 
of self-relation reached in quantity. 

(&) It has been pointed out by Hegel (who invented 
this analysis of the idea of quantity) that science con- 
tinually finds in Nature this preference for self-related 
numbers. The law of gravity, for example, shows us a 
ratio between the square of the time and the distance 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF QUANTITY. 345 

fallen; a ratio between the cubes of the planetary years 
and the squares of the orbits of revolution. In fact, space 
is three dimensional — or in some sort a third power of a 
line. 

§ 216. This ratio between the "anit of the sum 
and the elemental or constituent unit is not explicitly 
emphasized in the most elemental processes of arith- 
metic — addition, subtraction, multiplication, and di- 
vision. But in common fractions it is made explicit 
by using two numbers to express the quantity. 

(a) Seven eighths is neither 7 nor 8, but their ratio. 
The denominator 8 gives us the constituent unit (one 
eig-hth), and 7 g-ives us the unity of the sum, or ag-g-re- 
gate. The child finds that it requires a double act of the 
mind to think quantity at all, for he has to start with 
quality and then abstract from it or think it away. But 
he has to double this mental act again to think a fraction. 
He thinks the simple number 8, and then 7; then he com- 
bines them in one thought, and his result is the thought 
of this fraction, seven eighths. The operations called ratio 
and proportion — the old-fashioned " Eule of Three " — be- 
long to the same degree of comx^lexity as common frac- 
tions. Hence the " Rule of Three " was the place where 
the clumsy wits of the pupil proved inadequate. 

" ' The Eule of Three ' doth puzzle me, 
And fractions make me mad." 

(6) In every primary school there will be single pupils 
in each class that seem to lack the strength of mind to 
think quantity in the form of ratio. They will get on 
through simple addition and simple division, but they can 
not deal with fractions, because these involve the double 
or triple thought of two terms as united to form a result. 
I have noticed that minds which show brilliancy on the 



346 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 

lower plane of unrelated numbers sometimes encounter a 
hard limit on entering the study of the ratio or the frac- 
tion, and break down. Again, there is a very large per- 
centage that halt on the bridge over from arithmetic to 
algebra. They can think x^articular numbers, but not the 
general conditions expressed by formulae. 

(c) Decimal fractions involve one step of difficulty 
higher than common fractions. They have the same ele- 
ments of ratio with the added difficulty that the denomi- 
nator, instead of being expressed by a simple number, 
is itself a ratio, and must be calculated mentally by the 
pupil from the number of decimal places occupied in ex- 
pressing the numerator. Hence in decimal fractions we 
have a double ratio to think— a further step of complexity. 

(d) An excellent arithmetic was once made for use in 
normal schools; it showed the algebraic basis of each 
process. A mistake was made by the author, however, 
when he attempted to introduce the same methods into an 
arithmetic for mere elementary pupils. He placed deci- 
mal fractions before vulgar fractions — a correct process 
in the normal school, where notation and numeration are 
taught in view of the whole theory of the decimal system, 
but confusing enough to the pupil learning arithmetic 
for the first time. Here the author showed his ignorance 
of the psychology of quantity. 

(e) To comprehend a ratio requires more than twice 
as much intellectual effort as to understand a simple term. 
In three fourths (%) we have to think first 3, and then 4, 
and then their relation — 3 as modified by 4, and 4 as modi- 
fied by 3 — just as above shown in the example of seven 
eighths. Three divided by four, therefore, requires three 
steps that must be retained all together. In the lowest 
mind a new subject crowds out the old one; it can not 
hold two ideas at once. So the simplest mathematical 
mind can hold 3 or 4, but not three fourths. Now, if a 
vulgar fraction or a ratio is hard to think, when both the 
terms are stated explicitly and written out in full, it is 
still more difficult to handle a fraction where only the 
numerator is given, and you are obliged to make a mental 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF QUANTITY. 347 

calculation to deduce the denominator. A decimal frac- 
tion demands the complex thought required to think a 
ratio plus another more complex process of calculation 
to determine the denominator. Hence the teachers who 
undertook the use of the arithmetic mentioned did not 
succeed until they had inserted the subject of vulgar frac- 
tions as a step in teaching* decimals, by writing" out the 
denominators of the deciinals, in all cases, until the pupils 
had become familiar with the process, and could supply 
the suppressed term mentally. 

(f) The general theory of a subject is a clew to the 
psychology of learning it. A knowledge of algebra an- 
swers to reveal the psychology of the greater part of the 
processes of arithmetic, and especially that of the con- 
struction of the rules; but to know the fundamental order 
of subjects requires the philosophy of quantity itself. 
The philosophy of arithmetic shows three steps of compre- 
hension: the first, the grasping of simple numbers; the 
second, the grasping of the ratios of the first order, such 
as fractions and the " Kule of Three "; the third, the 
grasping the ratios based on involution and evolution — • 
ratios expressed by powers. The last step is the hardest 
to understand, because there is, first, a relation of the 
simple number to itself — its product as multiplier and 
multiplicand to produce a power; and, secondly, the index 
which shows how many times the operation is performed, 
or the power to which the number is raised. 

(g) In the case of logarithms, all simple numbers are 
regarded as powers of a basal number, and only their in- 
dices are employed, the terms of the ratio being entirely 
suppressed. 

(h) Arithmetic rises into difficult regions of thought 
through making the ratio of the two orders of units (in- 
volved in all quantity) its object. Algebra drops out the 
definite expression of the two orders of units between 
which the ratio exists, and deals with ratios altogether. 
It treats of the functions of quantity, and elaborates these 
only, leaving to arithmetic the business of evaluating them 
in numbers. The complexity of such mathematical 
25 



34:8 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 

thought is obvious. The expression of this ratio beeomea 
still more explicit in fluxions and the differential cal- 
culus. In the calculus the term vanishes as having* a dis- 
tinct value, and the ratio becomes all in all. Inasmuch 
as this is the true expression for quantity in its inner- 
most idea, w^e see how^ it is that the calculus furnishes 
a wonderful key for the explanation of the movements 
in Nature. Ratio is the essence of quantity. In the Cal- 
culus this is treated adequately.* 

§ 217. The general form under wliicli we behold 
objects in sense-perception is that of thing and en- 
vironment. This is called the category of quality, 
as we have already seen. To the question that asks, 
What kind? or regarding the qualities, we answer by 
describing the differences of the thing from its en- 
vironment. We mention its boundaries, its con- 
trasts, and its reciprocal relations. In the category 
of quality there is (a) affirmation (of the thing), (b) 
negation (of the environment), and (c) limitation (of 
the thing by the environment). 

(a) We have already seen that it is impossible to per- 
ceive self-activity by this category of quality or by ex- 
ternal perception, which invariably uses this category in 



* One of the most valuable articles on the philosophy 
of mathematics to be found in any language is that of 
Prof. George H. Howison, of the University of California 
(The Mutual Relations of the Departments of Mathe- 
matics, Journal of Speculative Philosophy for April, 1872, 
Tol. V, pp. 144-179). 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF QUANTITY. 349 

all its knowing-. All that we thus perceive has the form 
of external limitation and dependence; and limitation and 
dependence make an object finite. 

(&) In contrast to this is the category of internal per- 
ception, which beholds some example or specimen of self- 
activity — a feeling", an idea, or a volition. We have called 
(§9) the object of external perception phenomenon, and 
the object of internal perception noumenon. By " phe- 
nomenon " we mean something- that is not a complete 
being- existing- for itself, but something- dependent on 
another not only for its orig-in, but for its present exist- 
ence. It is only a manifestation or appearance of some en- 
ergy that has produced it and sustains it. 

(c) A noumenon, on the other hand, is suificient for 
itself; it is an original cause, a source of energy, an es- 
sence that manifests its own nature in what it produces. 
It is a self-activity. Introspection perceives self-activity 
as feeling, willing, and thinking. It perceives that which 
is sufficient for itself, and does not require another being 
as the source of its movements and functions. It, itself, 
is a producer of such effects; feelings, volitions, and 
thoughts are forms of its self-activity. A self is a noume- 
non, or independent being — a being that exists by itself 
and not merely in relation to something else. But a phe- 
nomenon exists only in relation to something else, and is 
wholly dependent; it is a show or appearance. 

(d) There is a realm lying between these two forms of 
existence — the realm of the quantitative. Quantity is a 
very important category, because it lies midway between 
the form of external perception and that of internal per- 
ception, and participates in both. 

{e) It is remarked by an acute thinker that the great 
significance of Pythagoras in the history of philosophy 
lies in the fact that he takes number as his principle, 
and that number lies one remove above sense-perception. 
It is one step of withdrawal from what is most external 
and superficial (the category of quality), and likewise one 
step of advance toward what is deepest and most sub- 
stantial, the category of self-activity. 



350 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 

§ 218. The idea of quantity is one of the most 
important in psychology. It is an instrument by 
which man becomes lord of I^Tature. Man divides 
and conquers — that is to say, he enumerates and 
measures, and adapts his means to the work to be 
accomplished, all by the idea of quantity. 

(a) He moves mountains and fills up the valleys by 
first estimating- the number of cubic yards (or tip-cart 
loads) it is necessary to transport, and marshals ag-ainst 
this quantity of earth the quantity of hands and ma- 
chines necessary to produce the result in the quantum of 
time required. Man makes machines by aid of his quan- 
titative idea. The very w^ord " mechanical " denotes what 
is quantitative as opposed to what is self-active (see my 
Hegel's Logic, pp. 242-280). 

(6) In studying physiological psychology we see a 
connection of self-active mind with its manifestation in 
the form of quantity; not quantity in its first aspect, that 
of extension, but as deg"ree of intensity. All science of 
Nature, in fact, is, in the first place, an effort to get be- 
hind the qualitative aspects of external things to the quan- 
titative conditions. The characteristics of accuracy and 
precision, which make science exact, are derived from 
quantity. 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OP ART AND LITERATURE. 351 

CHAPTER XXXYIIL 
The Psychology of Art and Literature, 

§ 219. The psychology of the beautiful in art 
and literature has three aspects: (a) That of the 
sensuous elements, regularity, symmetry, and har- 
mony, as symbolizing the activities of the soul; (h) 
the several arts, beginning with architecture, as pro- 
gressively realizing more and more adequate forms 
of manifestation of human freedom; (c) the corre- 
spondence of epochs of art with the three great epochs 
of civilization — Oriental, classic, and modern. 

(a) There is the theory that the primary function of 
art is amusement. What makes this degrading- theory 
plausible is the fact that there is sensuous enjoyment in 
the contemplation of works of art. But if we analyze this 
effect we shall trace even it to something- higher than 
sensuous sources. 

(&) One of the good definitions of art describes it as 
a means of manifesting the Divine in material form for 
the apprehension of the senses and the reason. This 
definition makes art one of the three highest products of 
the soul. The three highest activities of the soul deal 
with thQ beautiful, the good, and the true. Religion deals 
with the revelation of the Divine as the good. Art deals 
with its manifestation as the beautiful, and the truth in 
science and philosophy deals with the definition of the 
Divine for pure thought. The beautiful must contain 
two factors — first, a material factor, as stone and other 
building materials for architecture; stone, bronze, and 



352 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 

other material for sculpture; canvas, pigrnents, etc., for 
painting; air vibrations produced by the agency of strings 
and columns of air in wind instruments, etc., for music; 
mental pictures of sensuous objects created in the mind 
through the w^ords of the poet. Besides this natural side 
in art there is the other side — namely, the disposition 
of the material in such a way as to suggest spiritual 
activity, the feelings and passions of the mind, the mo- 
tives of its actions, etc. It is this union of the spiritual 
with the material that makes art. 

(c) Inasmuch as matter has for its general charac- 
teristic inertness and receptivity of external impressions 
and complete absence of self-determination, what is ma- 
terial, as such, can not manifest mind, can not mani- 
fest intellect and will, because these are forms of self- 
activity. Material things become works of art when they 
are so disposed that they seem to manifest self-deter- 
mination, or self-activity of a living soul, within them. 
It is evident, therefore, that the highest work of art will 
take on human form because the human body expresses 
most readily in its countenance, in its attitudes and ges- 
tures, the feelings, thoughts, and volitions of the soul. 

(d) Art turns the world of externality pure and sim- 
ple into a world of internality made perceptible to the 
senses of seeing and hearing*. It shapes bronze, and wood, 
and marble into temples and statues. It brings out by 
light, shade, colour, and perspective on surfaces the 
paintings and drawings that represent rational and moral 
beings. It produces sounds, arranged in a tonic sys- 
tem, and can by this means express feelings in a more 
direct manner than by the plastic arts. Finally, it makes 
the words of language its art material, and reaches poetic 
expression, the highest of the arts, because of greater 
compass than all the others and more adequate in its 
manifestation of reason. 

§ 220. I. Sensuous Elements. Regularity. — 
Regularity is reciirrence of the same — mere repeti- 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ART AND LITERATURE. 353 

tion. A rude people scarcely reaches a higher stage 
of art. Their desire for amusement is gratified by a 
string of beads or a fringe of some sort. It is a love 
of rhythm. The human form divine does not seem 
beautiful to the savage. It is not regular enough to 
suit his taste. He must accordingly make it beauti- 
ful by regular ornaments, or by deforming it in some 
way; by tattooing it, for example. 

(a) Why does regularity please? Why does recur- 
rence or repetition gratify the taste of the child or sav- 
age? The answer to this question is to be found in the 
generalization that the soul delights to behold itself, and 
that human nature is " mimetic," as Aristotle called it, 
signifying symbol-making. Man desires to know himself 
and to reveal himself, in order that he may comprehend 
himself; hence he is an art-producing animal. Whatever 
suggests to him his deep, underlying spiritual nature gives 
him a strange pleasure. The nature of consciousness is 
partly revealed in types and symbols of the rudest art. 
Chinese music, like the music of very young children, de- 
lights in monotonous repetitions that almost drive frantic 
any one with a cultivated ear. But all rhythm is a symbol 
of the first and most obvious fact of conscious intelli- 
gence or reason. Consciousness is the knowing of the self 
by the self. There are subject and object, and the activity 
of recognition. From subject to object there are distinction 
and difference, but with recognition sameness or identity 
is perceived, and the distinction or difference is retracted. 
What is this simple rhythm from difference to identity 
but regularity? It is, we answer, regularity, and it is 
much more than this. But the child or savage delights 
in monotonous repetition alone, not possessing the slight- 
est insight into the cause of his delight. His delight is, 
however, explicable through this fact of the identity in 



854 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 

form between the rhythm of his soul-activity and the 
sense-perception by which he perceives regularity. The 
sun-myth arises throug-h the same feeling. Wherever there 
is repetition, especially in the form of return-to-itself, 
there comes this conscious or unconscious satisfaction at 
beholding it (see § 205). 

§ 221. II. The Sensuous Elements. Symmetry. 
— Regularity expresses only the empirical perception 
of the nature of self -consciousness and reason. There 
is, as we have seen, a subject opposed to itself as 
object. Opposition or antithesis is, however, not sim- 
ple repetition, but with a difference. The identity 
is therefore one of symmetry, instead of regularity. 
Symmetry contains and expresses identity under dif- 
ference. We can not put the left-hand glove on our 
right hand. The two hands correspond, but are not 
repetitions of the same. It is a mark of higher aes- 
thetic culture to prefer symmetry to regularity. It 
indicates a deeper feeling of the nature of the divine. 

Nations that have reached this stage show their taste 
by emphasizing the symmetry in the human form by orna- 
ments and symmetrical arrangement of clothing. They 
correct the lack of symmetry in the human form in the 
images of their gods. The face is on the front side of 
the head, but the god shall have a face on the back of his 
head, too, to complete the symmetry. The arms directed 
to the front of the body must also correspond to another 
pair of arms directed in the opposite direction. Perhaps 
perfect symmetry is still more exacting in its require- 
ments, and demands faces with arms to match on the 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ART AND LITERATURE. 355 

right and left sides of the body. To us the idols of the 
ancient Mexicans and Central Americans seem hideous; 
but it was the taste for symmetry that produced them. 

§ 222. III. The Sensuous Elements. Harmony. 
— Harmony is the object of the highest culture of 
taste. Regularity and symmetry are so mechanical in 
their nature that they afford only remote symbols of 
reason in its concreteness. They furnish only the ele- 
ments of art, and must be subordinated to a higher 
principle. Harmony is free from the mechanical sug- 
gestions of the lower principles, but it posessses in a 
greater degree the qualities which gave them their 
charm. Just as symmetry exhibits identity under 
a deeper difference than regularity, so harmony, 
again, presents us a still deeper unity underlying 
wider difference. The unity of harmony is not a 
unity of sameness, nor of correspondence merely, but 
a unity of adaptation to end or purpose. Harmony is 
the expression of freedom, and of subordination of 
matter to the soul. Mere symmetry suggests external 
constraint; but in art there must be freedom ex- 
pressed. Regularity is still more suggestive of me- 
chanical necessity. Harmony boldly discards regu- 
larity and symmetry, retaining them only in sub- 
ordinate details, and makes all subservient to the 
expression of a conscious purpose. The divine is con- 



356 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUND ATIOIsts. 

ceived as spiritual intelligence elevated above its 
material expression so far that the latter is only a 
means to an end. 

(a) The Apollo Belvedere has no symmetry of arrange- 
ment in its limbs, and yet the disposition of each limb sug- 
gests a different disposition of another, in order to accom- 
plish some conscious act upon which the mind of the 
god is bent. All is different, and yet all is united in har- 
mony for the realization of one purpose. Here the human 
form, with its lack of regularity and symmetry, becomes 
beautiful. Harmony is a higher symbolic expression of 
the divine than were the previous elements. The human 
body is adapted to the expression of conscious will, and 
this is freedom. The perfect subordination of the body 
to the will is gracefulness. It is this which constitutes 
the beauty of classic art: to have every muscle under per- 
fect obedience to the will — unconscious obedience — so that 
the slightest inclination or desire of the soul, if made an 
act of the will, finds expression in the body. 

(b) When the soul is not at ease in the body, but is 
conscious of it as something separate, gracefulness de- 
parts, and awkwardness takes its place. The awkward 
person does not know what to do with his hands and 
arms; he can not think just how he would carry his body 
or fix the muscles of his face. He chews a stick or bites 
a cigar in order to have something to do with the facial 
muscles, or twirls a cane or twists his watch-chain, folds 
his arms before or behind, or even thrusts his hands into 
his pockets, in order to have some use for them which 
will restore his feeling of ease in his body. The soul is at 
ease in the body only when it is using it as a means of 
expression or action. 

(c) Harmony is this agreement of the inner and outer, 
of the will and the body, of the idea and its expression, 
so that the external leads us directly to the internal of 
which it is the expression. Gracefulness then results, 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ART AND LITERATURE. 357 

and gracefulness is the characteristic of classic or Greek 
art. Not only its statues, but its architecture and archi- 
tectural ornament, exhibit gracefulness or freedom. 

§ 223. Some writers hold the doctrine that art 
is the mere representation of Kature; but this can 
not be a true definition, because I^ature presents 
the ugly as well as the beautiful, and to represent the 
ugly, of course, does not convert it into the beauti- 
ful. A picture of the front of the Parthenon is 
beautiful because the Parthenon itself is beautiful. 
A picture of the Yale of Tempe, if taken from the 
right point of view, is beautiful. There are many 
landscapes that are beautiful, but very few landscapes 
that are beautiful from all points of view. Mature 
in its prose reality is very seldom beautiful. The 
artist must select his point of view, and must remove 
from his picture certain objects which, though real, 
mar the presentation of the main features. 

(a) Those who look upon Nature as the source of the 
beautiful, think of the landscape with its interesting 
variety of objects, its mountains and vales and winding 
streams, forests and meadows, the sky and the ocean. 
There is a sense of freedom v^hich comes to us as we 
leave the city and pass into the country. In the city we 
have a burden of care constantly on our minds, because 
we must be mindful of our human environment. We 
have complicated relations with our fellow-men, and there 
is an unremitting pressure of duty. Constant attention 
to etiquette is necessary, in order to save ourselves from 



358 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 

conflicts in which we embarrass our fellow-men and 
hinder our own work. When we come to the country, 
and are alone with trees, mountains, meadow brooks, and 
other inanimate objects, we have a sense of relief from 
duty and from the worry which a network of relations 
brings to us. This is not a sense of the beautiful; it is 
rather a charming sense of relief. The charming and 
the agreeable are sometimes the beautiful and sometimes 
not, and in the case of the enjoyment of the green fields 
and the wild luxuriance of Nature we do not have the 
sense of the beautiful so much as the sense of relief and 
freedom from care. 

(&) Regularity, symmetry, and harmony are degrees 
of the full realization of the art idea. Regularity obeys 
a hidden principle; symmetry presents identity under a 
deeper difference than regularity; harmony shows the 
subordination of regularity and symmetry to a more com- 
plete expression of the soul. A string of beads shows 
regularity, the mere dead repetition of the same form, 
but even this dead repetition is a manifestation of identity 
and a suggestion of a common origin of the individuals 
in one process. Right and left hands are symmetrical, 
but not regular. There is correspondence instead of 
repetition, and this represents the mind more adequately 
than mere regularity. The mind is an eternal vibration 
of subject and object. This is manifested in mere regu- 
larity; but subject is opposed to object, and this opposi- 
tion is represented in symmetry. But the essential activ- 
ity of the mind is much deeper than this. The mind, as 
will, modifies the object so as to make it conform to 
the subject. The mind, as intellect, thinks out the ex- 
planation of the object, and finds it a manifestation of 
divine reason. Harmony, or the sway of material ob- 
jects by the indwelling soul, which uses it as an in- 
strument and expression of itself, is the highest means 
of art. 

(c) With these principles in view, we are prepared to 
answer the question whether Nature presents the beauti- 
ful in as high a form as art. It is obvious that inorganic 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ART AND LITERATURE. 359 

nature by itself considered does not take on forms that 
represent freedom. Its forms are derived from without, 
and do not express the desires, purposes, or volitions 
of mind. When inorganic nature is used as material, and 
the artist g-ives it the human form as a statue or group, 
or makes it expressive of human thought, it may become 
beautiful. 



§ 224. Symbolic Art. — There are three great his- 
torical epochs of art and poetry^ corresponding to the 
three great stages of advancement of the nations of 
the world into conscious freedom. For the art and 
literature of a people reflect its degree of enlighten- 
ment, and are, in fact, next to religion, the chief 
means by which its civilization is preserved. We ac- 
cordingly have, as the lowest stage, the art of nations 
that have reached only the freedom of the social 
world without reflecting it in the individual. The 
citizen is buried beneath a mass, of customs and 
usages, laws and prescriptions, which he has had no 
hand in making and yet can not refuse to obey. 
This form of civilization is only a little above a 
condition of slavery for its citizens. Its art, ac- 
cordingly, does not create forms of free movement, 
but represents by appropriate symbols the crushing 
out of individuality. Such is the art of the great 
nations of Egypt, East India, Persia, and western 
Asia. 



360 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 

(a) It has been described by Hegel, whose ^sthetik * 
is by far the most satisfactory philosophy of art, as sym- 
bolic art. Its works of art adumbrate or hint at what the}- 
do not adequately express (see § 191). 

(6) The Hindu worshipped an abstract unity devoid 
of all form, which he called Brahma. His idea of the 
divine is defined as the negation not only of everything 
in Nature, but also everything human. Nothing that has 
form, shape, properties, or qualities— nothing, in short, 
that can be distinguished from anything else — can be 
divine according to the thought of the Hindu. This is 
pantheism. It worships a negative might which destroys 
everything. If it admits that the world of finite things 
arises from Brahma as creator, it hastens to tell us that 
the creation is only a dream, and that all creatures will 
vanish when the dream fades. There can be no hope for 
any individuality, according to this belief. Any art that 
grows up under such a religion will manifest only the 
nothingness of individuality and the impossibility of its 
salvation. Instead of beauty as the attribute of divinity, 
the Yogi studied to mortify the flesh; to shrivel up the 
body; to paralyze rather than develop his muscles. In- 
stead of gymnastic festivals, he resorted to the severest 
penances, such as holding his arm over his head until it 
wasted away. If he could produce numbness in his bod3% 

* Hegel's ^sthetik has been followed in this chapter, 
though at some distance. I have found it for thirty years 
a source of suggestive ideas that throw light on art, lit- 
erature, and civilization. (See vols, i, ii, and iii of Journal 
of Speculative Philosophy for complete translation of 
Benard's French analysis of the entire work, by James A. 
Martling. Also vols, v, vi, vii, and xi, xii, xiii, for complete 
translation of Hegel on Symbolic, Classic, and Komantic 
Art, by William M. Bryant; the part on Chivalry [in v, 
vi, vii] by Sue A. Longwell. Also see B. Bosanquet's trans- 
lation of the Introduction of Hegel [London, 1886], and 
also Mr. Bosanquet's other writings in elucidation of 
Hegel's theory of art.) 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OP ART AND LITERATURE. SQl 

so that all feeling* disappeared, he attained holiness. His 
divine was not divine-human, but inhuman rather. 

(c) Persian art adored light as the divine; it also 
adored the bodies that give light— the sun, moon, and 
stars — also fire; also whatever is purifying", especially 
water. The Persian relig"ion conceives two deities — a god 
of light and goodness, and a god of darkness and evil. The 
struggle between these two gods fills the universe, and 
makes all existence a contest. The art of the Persian 
portrays this struggle, and does not let pure human in- 
dividuality step forth for itself. 

((?) In Assyria and Chaldea we have the worship of 
the sun rather than of pure light. Hence there were arti- 
ficial hills or towers constructed, with ascending inclined 
planes on the outside rising to the flat top, crowned with 
a temple dedicated to Bel, or the sun god. Images partly 
human, partly animal, represented the divine. The lion, 
the eagle, the quadruped and bird, the human face, these 
were united to make the symbol of a divine being who 
could not be manifested in a purely human form. Their 
famous purple-dyed garments showed the visible struggle 
between light and darkness and the victory of light. 

(e) The Egj'^ptian religion, though it surpassed the 
Persian in that it conceived the divine as much more 
near human life, still resorted to anirrjal forms to obtain 
the peculiarly divine attributes. There were the sacred 
bulls Apis and Mnevis, the goat Mendes, sacred hawks 
and the ibis, and such divinities as Isis-Hathor, with a 
cow's head; Touaris, with a crocodile's head; Thoth, with 
the head of an ibis; Horus, with the head of a hawk; 
but Ammon, Ptah, and Osiris, with human heads and 
bodies. Thus we see that the Egyptian wavered between 
the purely human and the animal form as the image of 
the divine. So long as it is possible for a religion to per- 
mit the representation of the divine by an animal form, 
that religion has not yet conceived God as pure self-con- 
sciousness or reason. Its art can not arrive at graceful- 
ness. As a consequence of this defect, however, it can 
not account for the origin and destiny of the world in 



362 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 

such a way as to explain the problem of the human soul. 
It is an insoluble enigma, whose type is a sphinx. 

(f) The Sphinx is the rude rock out of which it rises, 
symbolizing inorganic nature; then the lion's body, typi- 
fying by the king of beasts the highest of organic beings 
below man; then the human face, looking up inquiringly 
to the heavens. Its question seems to be: " Thus far: 
what next? " Does the human break the continuity of the 
circle of Nature, within which there goes on a perpetual 
revolution of birth, growth, and decay, or does the human 
perish with the animal and plant and lose his individual- 
ity? How can his individuality be preserved without the 
body? The Egyptian's highest thought was this enigma. 
He combined the aiiirmative and negative elements of this 
problem, conceiving that man survives death, but will 
have a resurrection and need his particular body again, 
which therefore must be preserved by embalming it. The 
body of Osiris had to be embalmed by Isis. The sacred 
animals, bulls and others, were embalmed upon death. 

(g) The Egyptian laid all stress on death. In his art 
he celebrated death as the vestibule to the next world and 
the life with Osiris. Art does not get beyond the sym- 
bolic phase with him. As in the hieroglyphic the picture 
of a thing is employed at first to represent the thing, and 
by and by it becomes a conventional sign for a word, 
so the works of art at first represent men and gods, and 
afterward become conventional symbols to signify the 
ideas of the Egyptian religion. The great question to be 
determined is this: What destiny does it promise the in- 
dividual, and what kind of life does it command him to 
lead? The Egyptian symbolizes his divine by the pro- 
cesses of Nature, that represent birth, growth, death, 
and resurrection, and hence conceives life as belonging to 
it. The course of the sun — its rising and setting, its noon- 
day splendour and its nightly eclipse; the succession of 
the seasons — the germination, growth, and death of plants; 
the flooding and subsidence of the Nile — these and other 
phenomena are taken as symbols expressing the Egyptian 
conception of the divine living being. Finally, it rises out 



of the pictured representations by symbols, and tells 
the myth of Osiris killed by his brother Typhon, and of 
his descent to the silent realm of the under-world, and 
of his there reig^ning- king-, and of his resurrection. East 
Indian art, on the contrary, dealt with symbols that were 
not analogous to human life. They reverenced mountains 
and rivers, the storm winds and g-reat natural forces 
that were destructive to the individuality of man, but 
ulso reverenced life in animals. They founded asylums for 
ag-ed cows, but not for decrepit humanity. 

§ 225. Classic Art. — The highest form of art is 
reached by the so-called classic nations — Greece and 
Rome. They arrived at the expression of freedom 
in the body — freedom in its pose and freedom in 
its action. This is properly called gracefulness. The 
limbs of the body are obedient to the will of the 
soul. When the limbs are in the way, when the soul 
does not know what to do with them, we have awk- 
wardness as a result, and not gracefulness. Greek 
art seizes for its theme some moment of life when 
all the limbs are required to express the purpose of 
the soul, as, for instance, in the Apollo Belvedere. 
If it takes for its theme a sitting figure — the Olym- 
pian Zeus — it poses the body in such a way that we 
see the full control of the will over the limbs. The 
sitting Zeus could rise instantly and hurl his thun- 
derbolt. The " classic repose " of which we hear 
is ever a graceful repose — graceful because the whole 

body is pervaded and controlled by the soul. 
26 



3G4 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 

(a) The Greek religion made beauty the essential fea- 
ture of the idea of the divine, and hence his art is created 
as an act of worship of the beautiful. It represents the 
supreme attainment of the world in pure beauty, because 
it is pure beauty and nothing- beyond. Christianity reaches 
beyond beauty to holiness. Other heathen religions fall 
short of the Greek ideal, and lack an essential element 
which the Greek religion possessed. The Greeks believed 
that the divine is at the same time human; and human 
not in the sense that the essence of man, his purified 
intellect and will, is divine, but human in the corporeal 
sense as well. The gods of Olympus possess apj)etites and 
passions like men; they have bodies, and live in a special 
place. They form a society, or large patriarchal family. 

(6) The manifestation of the divine is celestial beauty. 
Moreover, the human being may by becoming beautiful 
become divine.. Hence the Greek religion centres about 
gymnastic games. These are the Olympian, the Isthmian, 
the Nemean, and the Pythian games. Exercises that shall 
give the soul sovereignty over the body and develop it 
into beauty, are religious in this sense. Every village has 
its games for physical development; these are attended 
by the people, who become in time judges of perfection 
in human form, just as a community that attends fre- 
quent horse-races produces men that know critically the 
good points of a horse. It is known who is the best man 
at wrestling, boxing, throwing the discus, the spear, or 
javelin; at running, at leaping, or at the chariot or horse- 
back races. Then, at less frequent intervals, there is the 
contest at games between neighbouring villages. The 
successful hero carries oif the crown of wild olive 
branches. Nearly every year there is a great national as- 
sembly of Greeks, and a contest open to all. The Olym- 
pian festival at Olympia and the Isthmian festival near 
Corinth are held the same summer; then at Argolis, in the 
winter of the second year afterward, is the Nemean festi- 
val; the Pythian festival near Delphi, and a second Isth- 
mian festival, occur in the spring of the third year; 
and, again, there is a second Nemean festival in the sum- 



THE PSYCnOLOGY OF ART AND LITERATURE. 3G5 

mer of the fourth year of the Olympiad. The entire people, 
composed of independent states, united by ties of religion, 
assemble to celebrate this faith in the beautiful, and 
honour their successful youth. The results carried the na- 
tional taste for the beautiful, as seen in the human body, 
to the highest degree. 

(c) The next step after the development of the per- 
sonal work of art in the shape of beautiful youth, by 
m.eans of the national games and the cultivation of the 
taste of the entire people through the spectacle of these 
games, is the art of sculpture, by which these forms of 
beauty, realized in the athletes and existing in the minds 
of the people as ideals of correct taste, shall be fixed in 
stone and set up in the temples for worship. Thus Greek 
art was born. The statues at first were of gods and demi- 
gods exclusively. Those which have come down to us 
cause our astonishment at their perfection of form. It 
is not their resemblance to living bodies, not their ana- 
tomical exactness that interests us, not their so-called 
" truth to Nature," but their gracefulness and serenity, 
their " classic repose." Whether the statues represent 
gods and heroes in action, or in sitting and reclining 
postures, there is this " repose," which means indwelling 
vital activity, and not mere rest as opposed to move- 
ment. In the greatest activity there are considerate pur- 
pose and perfect self-control manifested. The repose is 
of the soul, and not a physical repose. Even sitting and 
reclining figures — for example, the so-called Theseus from 
the Parthenon, the torso of the Belvedere — are filled with 
activity, so that the repose is one of voluntary self-re- 
straint, and not the repose of the absence of vital energy. 
They are gracefulness itself. (See Hegel's Philosophy of 
History, under Greece.) 

§ 226. Romantic Art. — The third stage of art 
is Christian art, or, as Hegel calls it, romantic art, 
which at first is occupied in showing the superiority 
of the soul to the body, and for this purpose selects 



366 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 

for its subjects examples of steadfastness under se- 
vere trial — martyrs, and especially the sufferings of 
Christ. It goes so far in this as to set itself in oppo- 
sition to classic artj and sometimes indicates its con- 
tempt for gracefulness in order to accentuate its 
preference for inward freedom and spiritual eleva- 
tion. It portrays freedom from the body, while 
Greek art shows freedom in the body. In the later 
development of Christian art we see the attempt 
to represent gracefulness without losing the expres- 
sion of the predominance of the inner life of the soul 
over its corporeal life. 

(a) In Fra Ang-elico's paintings we see Christian mar- 
tyrs with tortured bodies, but meekness and peace in their 
faces — a peace that passeth understanding", for they are 
at one with the Divine. There is no longer the expression 
of the desires of the body, but only the religious long- 
ing for spiritual perfection. Classic art showed us the 
soul in the body, and with bodily desires and passions, 
but purified by subordination to social restraints. Chris- 
tian art shows, in this first stage, the opposite of Greek 
art — not freedom in the body, but the renunciation of 
the body. 

(6) Then there is a second and later phase of ro- 
mantic art, represented by such artists as Eaphael, Mu- 
rillo. Da Vinci, Michael Angelo, Correggio, Holbein, and 
Rubens. Gracefulness has been more or less restored 
by these, but not the classic repose of the Greeks; 
for there remains, even in the latest forms of Chris- 
tian or romantic art, the portrayal of a longing or as- 
piration of the soul for something beyond what it has 
achieved. 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ART AND LITERATURE. 367 

§ 227. Classic or Greek and Roman art is the per- 
fect realization of the union of the material and spir- 
itual; hence the highest type of art as art. Chris- 
tian art; representing as it does the struggle of the 
soul against its physical environment, is a form of 
art that looks toward religion. It is therefore a 
transition from art to a higher form of the realiza- 
tion of reason — namely, religion. 

(a) Art is not a mere transitory phase of human cul- 
ture; it belongs to all subsequent ages of human history- 
after it has once come into being. Moreover, the classic 
form of art will more and more come to be admired in 
all the future Christian ages, because it portrays freedom 
in the form of gracefulness. The earliest Christian ages 
could not admire Greek art without falling back into 
sensuality. They had not yet attained a persistent hold 
of the spiritual. 

(&) When the Christian idea had been evolved in his- 
tory to a point where natural science could be pursued 
in a free and untrammelled manner, . then came the age 
of inventions, labour-saving and knowledge-extending in- 
ventions, that enable us to conquer Nature and emanci- 
pate ourselves from that drudgery which had been neces- 
sary for the sake of food, clothing, and shelter. In the 
presence of this development of power over Nature we 
desire to see a reflection of our material freedom, and 
we accordingly gratify ourselves by reproducing Greek 
art with its graceful forms. The perennial image of free 
control of bodily forms pleases us as it did the Greeks, 
but it does not excite in us a feeling of worship, as it 
did in them; for we worship a transcendent God, one 
who can not be fully revealed in graceful forms, like 
Zeus and Apollo, but who requires also science, religion, 
and philosophy for his revelation. For the Christian civi- 



368 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 

lization needs not merely piety of sense-perception, which 
is art, but piety of the heart and piety of the intellect. 
We have varied our spiritual wants, and we have a place 
for art in our lives as a reflection of our freedom. 

§ 228. The Several Arts. — The several fine arts 
are, in an ascending scale, architecture, sculpture, 
painting, music, and poetry. Dancing, landscape gar- 
dening, engraving, elocution, dramatic art, and rhet- 
oric are accessory to one or more of the five great 
departments of art, rather than separate departments. 

§ 229. Architecture. — The silent lessons of archi- 
tecture — the impressiveness of its masses, its har- 
monious proportions, its suggestion of great natural 
powers overcome by spiritual might — these effects are 
obvious. Art portrays what has an end of its own, 
and to be art of a very high character it must show 
that the beautiful object exists for itself, and does 
not exist for the sake of other objects — not even for 
morals or religion. But, of course, the highest art 
will be found in harmony with both morals and re- 
ligion. 

{a) The architecture of India and Eg-ypt belong-s to 
symbolic art. The human is strug-g-ling" against the natu- 
ral, but is not able to subdue it and achieve freedom. 
The highest achievement of Eg-yptian architecture appears 
in the pillars or columns of its temple crowned with the 
lotus, for in the lotus capitals there is an approximation 
toward gracefulness. 

(6) Greek architecture is much superior in its ex- 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ART AND LITERATURE. 369 

pression of freedom. Its Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian 
columns fully achieve gracefulness. In a solid wall for the 
support of the roof the manifestation of the forces which 
are struggling against the power of gravity are not so 
adequate as when the support is a pillar or column. The 
column being isolated, the effects of gravity are exhibited 
in the yielding of its capital — its expansion as in the 
Doric capital, or the graceful yielding curves as appear- 
ing in the Ionic volute, or the bending of the acanthus 
leaves in the Corinthian capital. Gravity is manifested 
on the one hand, but the Greek capital shows how easy 
and gracefully the supporting column resists the down- 
ward force. 

(e) The Roman arch is converted into a dome by carry- 
ing out its principle on all sides, instead of laterally alone. 
The arch is a ready suggestion, symbolically, of the Roman 
national principle. Each stone in the arch is relatively 
a keystone to all the rest. All depends on each and each 
on all. Each Roman citizen felt and acted as if he were 
the keystone to his nation. The dome suggests the sky 
over all, and hence toleration. Under the dome of the 
Roman Pantheon the gods of all nations were set up and 
worshipped. The dome is an appropriate symbol for the 
state or nation. Each patriotic citizen consecrates his 
life for the life of the social whole, and each is in turn 
supported and protected by the rest, like a keystone. 

(d) Romantic architecture comes to its highest com- 
pleteness in such Gothic structures as the cathedrals of 
France and the abbeys of England, but especially in the 
Cologne Cathedral and that of Amiens, and the Sainte- 
Chapelle of Paris. It celebrates the Divine not as some- 
thing originating in matter and lifted up away from mat- 
ter by its self-activity, but it expresses rather the com- 
plete nugatoriness of matter except as supported by 
spirit; for, instead of expressing the effects of weight or 
gravity in its slender columns, it expresses rather the 
support of what is below by what is above. The columns 
seem visibly to pull instead of to push or thrust. It is 
the heavens that support the earth. It seems as if the 



370 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 

cathedral floor is fastened to the columns, and these pull 
up and sustain the floor by fastening it to the roof. AH 
the lines point upward and seem to worship what is 
above. The Christian relig-ion is expressed in the Gothic 
cathedral, which has been called a petrifled prayer. The 
Eoman dome expresses the universal sway of civil law — 
a sky of justice, which extends over all. The Greek temple 
shows freedom in matter. It crowns a hill, like a blossom 
which has ascended from the surface of the earth to 
manifest a deep inner self-activity of matter itself. 

§ 230. Sculpture. — The statuary of Egypt and 
the Orient does not express freedom; it abounds in 
stiff and ungraceful lines; but the statuary of the 
Greeks is the supreme achievement of a people whose 
religion was a worship of the beautiful. In the high- 
est period of its perfection it represents so much 
dignity of character, so much rationality and clear 
consciousness of purpose in its figures of the gods, 
that the Divine itself seems to be present in material 
form. Christianity has not been able to express its 
distinctive ideals in sculpture. It finds painting a 
far more adequate means. Painting can express sen- 
timent by means of colour; it can show subjective 
feelings and subtle reactions occasioned by the situa- 
tion in which the theme of the work of art is placed. 
Modern sculpture is often defective through the fact 
that an attempt is made to express sentiment rather 
than action. The highest sculpture exhibits the seren- 
ity of the soul even in the presence of danger. 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OP ART AND LITERATURE. 371 

§ 231. Painting. — The proper subjects of paint- 
ing are to be found especially in the Christian reli- 
gion, and in the situations of modern life that appeal 
intensely to our ethical emotions. Greek painting, 
except what has been preserved for us in the frescoes 
of buried cities, is known to us only through descrip- 
tions. From the evidences before us, it is safe to say 
that painting did not find with the ancients its appro- 
priate themes. The subjects of Christian painting 
are divine love and tenderness, as seen in the Madon- 
nas; the soul, supported by its faith in the Divine, 
manifesting its constancy even when enduring the 
bodily tortures of martyrdom; the Divine, gracious 
and forgiving even in the crucifixion scene; the 
Transfiguration, reflecting the light of the soul when 
seeing pure truth; the Last Supper, exhibiting the 
emotions of the good when betrayed by the bad; 
the Last Judgment, showing the return of the deed 
upon the doer; not so much action as reaction, not 
so much the deed, as the emotion aroused in the depths 
of the soul by the presence of injustice and hate. 

§ 232. Music. — Music has the form of time, 
while architecture, sculpture, and painting have the 
form of space; hence it can express all the steps in 
the genesis of the situation which it portrays, and is 
not confined to a single moment, like the other arts. 



372 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 

The group of statuary, the Laokoon, for instance, 
must seize the highest moment of the action and 
present it. In this highest moment we can see what 
has happened before, and what is likely to happen in 
the time that follows. 

(a) Goethe has discussed this admirably in his essay 
on the Laokoon. It will not do for the sculptor to at- 
tempt to present us in his work of art the entire comple- 
tion or working out of the theme; he must seize it in the 
middle, where the spectators can easily read the past 
series of actions and motives and forebode what is to suc- 
ceed. Painting- is not so closely confined to a point of 
time as sculpture. Painting" can idealize space through 
perspective, light and shade, colour, clearness and obscu- 
rity. While actual size, actual length of line, is necessary 
in architecture, in painting it can be represented by 
perspective. Not only the largest temple of the world, 
but even Mont Blanc, could be painted on a piece of ivory 
which could be covered with one's thumb. 

(b) Painting, moreover, by reason of the fact that it 
can present to us sentiment through the aid of colour, 
finds the limitation of its theme to a single moment of 
time less important. But music can take up the whole 
series of actions and reactions which are presupposed by 
a serious situation of the soul, and can carry these all 
through to the final denouement. 

(c) The material side of music is found in the struc- 
ture and peculiarities of the several musical instruments: 
vibration by means of strings, columns of air in wind in- 
struments, and, above all, by the vocal chords of the 
human being. A tone is a repetition of the same wave" 
length. One tone can produce with another one which 
has an agreement with it partial or complete chords and 
concords; with another tone not agreeing with it, it pro- 
duces a discord. There is a natural order of tones, partly 
discordant and partly concordant with the ke3'-note, which 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OP ART AND LITERATURE. 373 

forms the scale. It includes what is called an octave. An 
aria starts from the fundamental tone of a scale, or from 
its third or fifth, and, by departing from the fundamental 
tone or from those kindred with it, expresses its aliena- 
tions and collisions. Finally, it returns to the funda- 
mental tone or one of its close kindred, and the problem is 
solved. 

(f/) There is also counterpoint, which, like persons 
in a drama, expresses a concordant or opposing- aria to 
the chief one. With these resources music excels all the 
plastic arts in its ability to portray problems and col- 
lisions of human life and their solution. Emotional dis- 
turbances and the restoration of harmony naturally take 
on this form of expression. But there is the music of 
sensuous pleasure, and opposed to it the music of moral 
action. The Italian boat song- or the Scotch reel may 
express the former, and a sonata or symphony of Bee- 
thoven will express moral action. Architecture has been 
called frozen music. Neither architecture nor music deals 
directly with the shapes of rational creatures or with the 
imag-e of the human form divine; they are confined to 
proportions and symmetries. 

§ 233. Poetry. — Poetry is the form of art that 
unites in itself all the others. It is closely allied to 
music — the time art — and through the imagination 
it can reproduce each and all of the space arts. It 
can do more than this: it can, through its appeal di- 
rectly to imagination, transcend the time limitations 
of music, and the space limitations of architecture, 
sculpture, and painting. There is the poetry of na- 
tional collisions, or epic poetry, the poetry of the in- 
dividual, or lyric poetry, and the poetry of society, 
or the drama, which takes the form of comedy or 



374 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 

tragedy. Comedy shows us a collision which has 
arisen between the individual and some social ideal, 
in which the discomfiture of the individual is not so 
deep as to destroy him. The social organism in 
which man lives is such as to convert his negative 
deeds into self-refuting or self-annihilating deeds. 
This occasions laughter when the individual is not 
seriously injured by his irrational deed. Tragedy, 
on the other hand, shows us a serious attack upon 
the social whole and the recoil of the deed upon the 
doer, so that he perishes through the reaction of his 
deed. Tragedy, however, requires as a necessary con- 
dition that the individual who perishes shall have a 
rational side to his deed. A mere villain is not sufii- 
cient for a tragic character; there must be some justi- 
fication for him. 

(a) The greatest poets are Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, 
and Goethe, and these artists are in the truest sense edu- 
cators of mankind. The types of character exhibited in 
their literary works of art, such as Achilles, Agamem- 
non, Ulysses, Macbeth, Hamlet, Wilhelm Meister, and 
Faust, have helped and will always help all mankind to 
self-knowledge, by showing them how feelings become 
convictions and how convictions become deeds, and how 
deeds react upon the doer through the great organisms 
of human society. 

(6) The world-wisdom of a people is largely derived 
from its national poets, not as a moral philosophy, but as 
vicarious experience. Aristotle said that the drama puri- 
fies the spectator by showing him how his feelings and 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ART AND LITERATURE. 3Y5 

convictions will result when carried out. Without making- 
the experience himself, he profits by participating in the 
world of experience depicted for him by the poet. It 
is more or less in human nature to recoil ag-ainst direct 
advice, especially moral advice. We do not like to have 
its application made personal; but in the work of art 
we see the moral energies of society acting* upon ideal 
personages, and the lesson to the spectator is more im- 
pressive and more wholesome, because it is accepted by 
him in his freedom, and not imposed upon him by external 
authority. 

§ 234. All that man does contributes to a revela- 
tion of human nature in its entirety, but art and 
literature lead all other branches of human learning 
in their capacity to manifest and illustrate the desires 
and aspirations, the thoughts and deeds of mankind. 
In the presence of the conflict of moral ideals, the 
struggle of passion against what is rational, the at- 
tacks of sin and crime on the divine order of the 
world, all that is deepest in human' character is mani- 
fested. Art and literature portray these serious col- 
lisions, and like the mountain upheavals that break 
and tilt up the strata of the crust of the earth, and 
reveal to the geologist the sequence of the formations 
from the most primitive to the most recent, so these 
artistic situations reveal to all men the successive 
strata in the evolution of human emotions, ideas, and 
actions. Thereby the single individual comes to know 
the springs of action of his fellow-men. 



376 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 

CHAPTEE XXXIX. 

The Psychology of Science and Philosophy. 

§ 235. Science is the systematized results of ob- 
servation. Each fact in the world is placed in the 
light of all the other facts. All facts are made to 
help explain each fact. But each fact represents 
only one of the many possible states of existence 
which a thing may have. When one state of exist- 
ence is real, the others are mere possibilities, or, as 
they are called, ^^ potentialities." Thus water may 
exist as liquid, or vapour, or ice, but when it is ice 
the liquid and vapour states are mere potentialities. 
Science collects about each subject all its phases 
of existence under different conditions; it teaches 
the student to look at a thing as a whole, and see 
in it not only what is visible before his senses, but 
what also is not realized and remains dormant or 
potential.^ 

(a) The scientifically educated labourer, therefore, is 
of a hig-her type than the mere " hand-labourer," because 
he has learned to see in each thing its possibilities. He 
sees each thing- in the perspective of its history. In the 

* Compare with this § 201, («) and (6), above. 



PSYCHOLOGY OF SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY. S11 

educated labourer we have a hand belonging to a brain 
that directs, or that can intelligently comprehend a de- 
tailed statement of an ideal to be worked out: the labourer 
and the " boss " are united in one man. There are differ- 
ent degrees of educated capacity, due to the degree in 
which this power of seeing invisible iDotentialities or 
ideals is developed. The lowest humanity needs constant 
direction, and works only under the eye of an overseer; 
it can work with advantage only at simple processes; by 
repetition it acquires skill at a simple manipulation. 

(&) The incessant repetition of one muscular act 
deadens into habit, and less and less brain work g'oes to 
its performance. When a process is reduced to simple 
steps, however, it is easy to invent some sort of machine 
that can perform it as well as, or better than, the human 
drudge. Accordingly, division of labour gives occasion 
to labour-saving machinery. The human drudge can not 
compete with the machine, and is thrown out of employ- 
ment and goes to the almshouse or perhaps starves. If 
he could only be educated and learn to see ideals, he could 
have a place as manager of the machine. The machine 
requires an alert intellect to direct and control it, but 
a mere " hand " can not serve its purpose. The higher 
development of man produced by science therefore acts 
as a goad to spur on the lower orders. of humanity to be- 
come educated intellectually. Moreover, education in sci- 
ence enables the labourer to acquire easily an insight 
into the construction and management of machines. This 
makes it possible for him to change his vocation readily. 
There is a greater and greater resemblance of each process 
of human labour to every other now that an age of 
machinery has arrived. The differences of manipulation 
are growing less, because the machine is assuming the 
hand-work, and leaving' only the brain-work for the labour- 
er. Hence there opens before labour a great prospect of 
freedom in the future. Each person can choose a new 
vocation, and succeed in it without long and tedious ap- 
prenticeship, provided that he is educated in general 



378 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 

§ 236. There are three stages in the development 
of science: First, there is the observation of things 
and facts — the scientists map out and inventory the 
objects in each department of E^ature; secondly, the 
interrelations are investigated, and this leads to a 
knowledge of forces and influences which produce or 
modify those objects that have been inventoried in 
the first stage of science. This is the dynamic stage, 
the discovery of forces and laws connecting each fact 
with all other facts, and each province of Mature with 
all other provinces of I^ature. The goal of this sec- 
ond stage of science is to make each fact in Nature 
throw light on all the other facts, and thus to illu- 
minate each by all. Out of this arises the system 
of the whole, and the third stage of science is reached. 
Science in its third and final stage learns to know 
everything in Nature as a part of a process which it 
studies in the history of its development. When it 
comes to see each thing in the perspective of its evolu- 
tion, it knows it and comprehends it. 

(a) Science is said to be founded on facts of observa- 
tion. Do facts have to be transformed into truths, or 
are they truths already? The direct fall of an apple from 
the tree is a fact to the sw^ine that run to devour it; but 
the thoug-htful man, Isaac Newton, sitting- under the tree, 
sees involved in one fact the fall of the apple and the 
shaking- of the tree by the wind, the wind occasioned 
by the movement of the sun to the equinox, and this 



PSYCHOLOGY OF SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY. 379 

again occasioned by the inclination of the earth's axis 
to the plane of the ecliptic, its revolution round the sun, 
etc.; he sees, too, the moon through the branches of the 
tree from which the apple has fallen; the fall of the 
apple is one fact with the fall of the moon in its orbit: 
he sees the law of universal gravitation in the fall of 
the apple. 

(6) A fact is a relative synthesis — an arhiWary syn- 
thesis, we may say. It is a fragment of a larger whole of 
things and events. Since it is determined by all that 
exists in the universe as the totality of conditions, we can 
not seize any fact in its entire compass except by thinking 
the universe. 

(c) A fact in its narrower compass may be easily 
seized; but the exposition of a fact in its widest relations 
is " a mere ingenious arrangement of words " to the one 
who is not equal to the task of rethinking those relations. 
Aristotle's works, taken as a whole, are an attempt to 
seize the facts of the world in their entirety — each fact 
in its entirety; and he finds that the entirety of each 
fact — each fact g-rasped in all its conditioning relations — 
is the entirety of all facts; in short, the ultimate fact is 
one, and that, namely, what Plato calls the Self-moved 
One. 



§ 237. Philosophy investigates the ultimate pre- 
suppositions of existence. It seeks a first principle 
of all. Accordingly, it sets out from any given fact, 
thing, or event, and begins at once to eliminate from 
it what is accidental or contingent and drop it out 
of consideration. It does not begin with an inventory, 
but goes at once to a first principle, and tries with this 
to explain the inventory furnished it by experience. 

All sciences deal in unity. They unite phenomena in a 

27 



380 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS.' 

principle. If tliey liave become genuine sciences, they 
find for a principle a definite causal energy, which 
unfolds or acts according to laws. These laws ex- 
press the nature or constitution of that causal energy. 
A science that rests on mere classification has not yet 
arrived at a true scientific form, because it has not 
yet shown how its general principle produces its 
details and applications. Such an imperfect sci- 
ence reaches merely subjective unities — mere aggre- 
gates of things or events more or less independ- 
ent of each other. The word process names the 
important idea in science. All the material of a 
science should be united in one process. To con- 
stitute a process, it is clear that there must be an 
active cause, and its operation according to a fixed 
method. 

In a certain way, too, all science discusses presupposi- 
tions, and philosophy is not the only knowledge of presup- 
positions. Given a thing" or event, science presupposes that 
it exists as a link in a chain of causality, and therefore sets 
itself to discover its antecedents and consequences; in 
short, to find its place in some process. This investig-ation 
on the part of science aims to learn the history of the 
thing" or event. Its history reveals its former states and 
transmutations — in other words, the activity of the energy 
or cause by which it has come to be. The true method 
of science is the historical one — the method of discover- 
ing- one by one the antecedent stages of things or events, 
and learning by this means the nature of the principle 
that reveals itself in the process. 



PSYCHOLOaY OF SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY. 381 

§ 238. !N'atural science points toward philosophy 
as a sort of science of science ; for that there is a gen- 
eral scientific method implies that all the sciences 
are related one to another through some universal con- 
dition, belong to processes, and have their explanation 
in principles. This underlying condition in which all 
objects find their unity is time and space, and all sci- 
ences presuppose the possibility of a science of time 
and space (mathematics and its applications). 

§ 239. Ultimate science, or philosophy, finds 
causality to be transcendent, and discovers absolute 
or independent causality to be mind or reason — self- 
conscious, absolute personality (see Chapters YI and 
YII). Such ultimate science shows the place of 
things or events in the system of the universe, and 
reveals their origin and destiny. It explains things 
and events through the self-revelation of the absolute 
mind. Philosophy does not inventory anything what- 
ever; it explains only what is furnished it ; something 
being givei]||in a definite manner, philosophy will 
discover one by one its presuppositions, and find its 
place and function in the absolute system. 

(a) If the thing- or event is not so far defined by one 
of the special sciences that it can be referred to some 
one of their principles, then only a very vague utterance 
about it can be made by philosophy. If it is only a thing" 
or event, and it is not said w^hether it is animal, veg-etable, 



382 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 

or mineral, or some activity of one of them, then only 
the vague dictum can be pronounced that it arises some- 
where in the creative process of the absolute, or, as reli- 
gion states it, " it has arisen in the Mdsdom of God's provi- 
dence," and we are sure in advance of all examination 
of the thing or event that it has a place and a purpose. 
If the thing or event is defined as falling within some 
science — say, for example, a plant, or some activity of 
it, as falling within botany — we can speak more definitely, 
and predicate of it what philosophy and science have dis- 
covered in regard to the place and function of vegetation 
in the world. 

(&) For the reason that philosophy does not inventory 
any facts or events, but assumes them as thus inventoried 
by other sciences, it can not be accused of " affecting 
omniscience." It is, in fact, a special department of 
human knowledge, and requires special study and investi- 
gation just as other departments. 

§ 240. The principle of specialization is conceived 
as opposed to that of philosophy. We are told that 
specialization is the principle of all progress; that 
philosophy deals with ultimate unities, and therefore 
can make no progress ; that all progress comes through 
inventorying anew some minute province; that di- 
vision or subdivision is best, because th^^ninuter the 
field the more completely and exhaustively it may 
be inventoried. 

Philosophy, it is said, is the enemy to this specializing 
and inventorying; it is content with any results that are 
handed to it, and manages to deal quite as well with im- 
aginary things and events as with real ones. But as phi- 
losophy does not attempt any inventory, it is not a sub- 
stitute for any one or for all of the special sciences. It 



PSYCHOLOGY OF SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY. 383 

presupposes them as complementary to it; they give it its 
objects to explain by the ultimate first principle. 

§ 241. All philosophies imply the same first prin- 
ciple, although they do not all find it. Every phi- 
losophy sets up a first principle as the origin of all, 
the cause of all, and the ultimate destiny of all. Let 
such principle be called X. Then X is assumed as 
originating all that exists or has existed or will exist, 
through its own activity, and hence X is a self-activ- 
ity; and self -activity is recognised by us in life and 
mind. 

(a) According- to the current evolutionary view, all 
nature is a struggle for survival of forms. The inorganic 
forms go down before the organic forms. Of the organic 
forms, the plant serves the animal and yields to him. 
The animal in turn yields to man. Man, in fact, conquers 
all nature. Here the law of survival of the fittest comes 
to mean the survival of individuals that have most intelli- 
gence. All nature, it would seem, is a process for origi- 
nating individuality and developing it into rational being. 
Looked at theologically, this is satisfactory. Nature is the 
creation of souls. It implies, of course, the supremacy 
of mind, since all its lower processes exist for the produc- 
tion of spiritual beings — they depend on mind, so to 
speak, and demonstrate the substantiality of mind. Mind 
is the final cause and purpose of nature. This again im- 
plies that mind creates nature to refiect it. God creates' 
nature, and through nature creates spiritual beings who 
participate in his blessedness. Hence nature presupposes 
a God of grace and good will toward his creatures. 

(h) Although this is satisfactory as a world- view, and 
it harmonizes with the view taken in religion, it does not 
follow that the methods of science study have a spiritual- 



384 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 

izing tendency, and, in fact, the opposite is the case. The 
method of external observation is sharply in contrast with 
the method of internal observation or introspection. When 
we look within we behold self-activity, as feeling-, think- 
ing", and willing; when we look out upon the material 
world with our sense-perception, we seem to see that 
everything- is under fate, or external necessity. Every- 
thing-, in short, is regarded as having an environment of 
outside conditions or relations upon which it depends: 
the totality of its conditions completely controls it, makes 
it what it is, and necessitates all its changes. Fate 
or necessity prevails universally according to such a view. 
The category of quality, according to philosophy, is that 
form of thinking which looks upon everything as related 
to other things — everything as dependent on an environ- 
ment. This, we see, is precisely the attitude of external 
observation, and external observation prevails in the prac- 
tical work of the natural sciences. 

§ 242. To pass from the intellect to the will re- 
quires a philosophic activity; for philosophy is the 
form of thinking which is exercised or employed 
whenever one closes a train of reflection and resolves 
to act. Deliberation belongs to the intellect; it holds 
action in suspense until it shall get a complete survey 
of the subject. Such a survey implies an inventory 
and an act of systematizing. But by the nature of 
the case an inventory of an objective sphere can never 
be completed, by reason of the infinitude of its details. 
Each detail can be subdivided again and again. 

If the will waited and held back its action until 
absolutely all the data were in, it would never act at all. 
The deed would be " sicklied o'er with the j)ale cast of 



PSYCHOLOGY OF SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY. 385 

thoug-ht." What is necessary is this: The inventory must 
be stopped, and all the facts must be assumed to be in 
hand. Then they must be summed up and their trend 
and bearing ascertained. This being done, the will is now 
in readiness to act; action assumes that the inventory is 
completed, and that the ultimate bearing of the data is 
known. Hence all practical action suspends the scientific 
or discursive form of thought, closes the case, so to speak, 
and puts on the philosophical attitude, assuming its survey 
to be a complete and absolute one. 

(«) Every science, therefore, must put on a philosophic 
form before it becomes useful in jjractical life. If this 
sounds strange to any one, let him consider that a science 
(and let each one conceive here his own favourite special 
science — history, sociology, etc.) seeks first to make an ex- 
haustive inventory of the facts within its field of investi- 
gation, and, secondly, to discover the laws of evolution 
of those facts. By the principle of evolution we come to 
see exactly how each fact is related to every other as ante- 
cedent or subsequent in the stage of development. 

(h) Thus a science in its second stage unites facts into 
a system, so that each fact throws light on all other facts 
in its province, and is in turn illuminatQfl by them. Such 
illumination of one detail by the rest brings out the prin- 
ciple of the whole system. The whole comes to be re- 
vealed in each part^ — not the whole as an aggregate, but 
the whole as a principle — the spirit that unites the details 
and makes them into an organism. Keferring again to 
Kant's distinction between organic and inorganic, " In 
an organism each part is both means and end to all the 
others"; each part of the body — like the hand, for exam- 
ple — exists for the sake of all the other parts of the body, 
and so, too, all the other parts contribute in their turn to 
its production and sustenance. 

(c) Science struggles toward a knowledge of the prin- 
ciple that animates the whole province, thus tending* to- 
ward that kind of knowledge which we may term philo- 
sophical. In its third stage science becomes philosophical 
in very truth, for it seeks to discover the relation of each 



386 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 

special science to every other, and to become the science 
of science. Each science, in that case, becomes an indi- 
vidual detail employed to throw light on every other sci- 
ence, and in turn to receive illumination by the concen- 
trated light of all these others. Philosophy differs from 
science only by this comprehensiveness; it seeks to show 
the validity of a first principle of all things, whereas sci- 
ence in its second stage seeks only the principle of its 
subordinate province, and not the supreme principle of 
the world as a whole. But science in its third stage — ■ 
comparative science — science that combines one science 
with another — is not different from philosophy. 

(d) The actually working scientific man has to resist 
the tendency to philosophize. If he wishes to serve the 
cause of all science, he must single out some new province 
of investigation and proceed to inventory its facts and in- 
dividual items. He must continually resort to the first 
stage of scientific work — the stage of mere inventory 
and verification — Antaeus touching the earth, as it were. 
But confine himself as he may to the mere inventory of 
his chosen province, he proceeds insensibly into the sec- 
ond stage of scientific thought, and can not help seeing 
more and more in each of his facts the light which the 
other facts throw upon it. Upon completing an exhaustive 
inventory of the facts in his province, each part becomes 
luminous, because it is seen to be organically related to 
the rest. Goethe, as before noted, symbolizes this result 
of inductive science by the figure of Homunculus in the 
second part of his Faust. Limited to a small province, 
symbolized by the bottle, the entire province may be 
exhaustively inventoried, and then the facts be organically 
related, so that each is alike means and end for all the 
rest — a sort of a living organism, as it were — and this 
living organism is symbolized by Homunculus, who, as 
Goethe tells us, is continually longing to burst his bottle 
— that is, he wishes to transcend his narrow province of 
knowledge and attain to philosophic knowledge that sees 
one principle in everything. Poetic insight sees the same 
unity, and this is symbolized by Eros. 



PSYCHOLOGY OF SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY. 38Y 

§ 243. Philosophy seeks to discover the bearing 
of all the conditioning circumstances on a situation. 
It is evident that the "ultimate ground of action must 
always be a moral one, therefore, because the motive, 
express or implied, must always be some relation to 
the purpose that rules in the universe, its ultimate 
fact. Such relations are defined in only two ways — 
by religion or by philosophy. 

Hig-her instruction differs from lower instruction 
chiefly in this: Lower instruction concerns more the in- 
ventory of thing's and events, and hence has less to do 
with inquiring- into their unity. As pointed out elsewhere, 
its studies are comparative. Hig-her instruction deals 
more with the practical relation of all species of knowl- 
edg-e to man, as individual will and as will of the social 
whole. Such relation, it is admitted, is ethical. Now, 
since the doctrine of the ethical rests on the nature of 
the first principle, and philosophy is the investigation of 
that principle, it follows that philosophy, express or im- 
plied, must be the basis of hig-her education. 

§ 244. The spirit of the first stage of scientific 
investigation is opposed to the practical, because it 
devotes itself to inventorying. Wisely to act, we 
must stop our inventory and assume that all our 
facts are in; we must close the case without taking 
further testimony, and, in view of what is already 
known, do our deed. 

(a) All considerate action demands this g-eneral sur- 
vey over the whole inventory and a distinct withdrawal 



388 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 

of the mind from the investigation of fresh details. There 
must be a resolve to stop inventorying and close the case. 
" In view of so much investigation as has been completed, 
it seems wise to act thus and so " — and then we act. 

(6) After the deed is done, we open our case once more 
and proceed with our inventorying until it becomes neces- 
sary to act again; for the course of experience is a contin- 
ual process of inventory. This is true of all practical 
provinces. In medicine, we must try to heal with such 
remedies as we have discovered, and not wait until we have 
completed our science of healing. In politics, we must 
act in the light of such parts of history as have been in- 
ventoried, and not pause for the whole to be completed. 
Practical action, the human will, must close its inventory 
and take its general survey, and act on its generalization 
as if the insig'ht were complete. 

(c) It is quite as important that as soon as the neces- 
sity for action is past w^e should again open our investi- 
gations and proceed with our inventory. The inventory 
of the existing details of a province is something that can 
never be completed. If we delayed all practical action 
until this is complete, we should never act at all, 

(d) Moreover, if we delayed our general survey — i. e., 
the philosophic attitude — until the inventory were com- 
plete, we should never take a general survey. But as prac- 
tical steps must be taken and deeds be done, it is perpet- 
ually necessary to introduce the philosophical attitude of 
mind — that attitude which lets go its hold on some particu- 
lar detail and, metaphorically, stands back so as to take 
a general survey of the whole in its proportions. 

§ 245. So long, therefore, as the human will 
may act, as well as the intellect perceive, there is a 
necessary province of philosophical activity, and no 
practical man can escape it. If the practical man 
despises the philosophical aspect, his contempt is apt 



PSYCHOLOGY OF SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY. 389 

to appear in the one-sidedness and self-contradictorj 
character of his deeds; for his contempt will cause 
neglect and carelessness in his general survey — he 
will not sum up the case judicially, but will give un- 
due weight to some items of his inventory. 

(a) The moral quality of deeds involves one's theory 
of the first principle of the universe. Inasmuch as every 
deed must be considered in its moral aspect before it 
can be called considerate, we see how completely the 
philosophic phase of the mind mediates between science 
and practice. 

(6) We must take notice again here that this is not a 
question of specializing or not specializing in our work. 
The person who confines his attention to the inventorying 
of some very limited sphere of investigation — say, the dative 
case, or the history of the Juke family, or the course of 
a particular tornado— does not specialize his activity any 
more than the person who devotes his attention to the 
origin of the moral law, the ethnical trend of the Anglo- 
Saxon mind, or the fundamental moving principle in all 
human history. In the latter case,' the person looks at 
the general form, and trains his mind to abstract from 
all other phases of detail. Neglecting content, he looks 
at form. Neglecting the temporary and local variation, 
he studies the large variations that fill entire epochs and 
whole continents. Each method of observation specializes 
and neglects the province of the other. 

§ 246. The psychology of the history of philoso- 
phy is contained in the doctrine of the five intentions 
of the mind.^ In every act of knowing there are 

* See the Journal of Speculative Philosophy, vol. x, 
July, 1876, pp. 225-231. 



390 PSYCnaLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 

present the object and the ego; the former may be 
a sense-object (first intention), or a class of objects — 
i.e., the object-producing cause (second intention); 
or the first principle, as creator of the totality of being 
in time and space (third intention) ; or the method of 
proving the first principle (fourth intention); or the 
totality of method, the first principle presupposed by 
all method (the fifth intention). 

I. In the most rudimentary form of knowing — 
namely, in sense-perception — there is a union of the 
two factors which form the extremes of cognition; 
these are the pure ego and the sense-object. The 
latter is particularity, immediately conditioned as 
here and now perceived; the former is the self which 
perceives, the universal subject of all activity of per- 
ceiving. The present now is a point in time, and 
has no duration except through the synthetical ad- 
dition of past and future times, which are not, but 
either were or else will be. Thus the perception of 
a permanent, say, a relation of any sort, can not take 
place without attention on the part of the subject 
who perceives to itself — that is to say, to the ego, or 
self, which is the universal or permanent factor in 
sense-perception. Thus the perception of relations is 
accomplished by turning the attention from the sense- 
object to the self: it is an act of reflection or bend- 



PSYCHOLOGY OF SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY. 391 

ing back of the self to the self. The self turns from 
the content of perception and considers its form. 

Since permanence is necessary in the subject in order 
that it may perceive any relation, it follows that self- 
perception enters all knowing*. This explains the role 
of self-consciousness in cog-nition. From the emptiest 
act of knowing" " this is now and here," up to the rich- 
est " God creates the totality to have it become a reflec- 
tion of him through its own self-activity and independ- 
ence," all predication is possible only through the with- 
drawal of the mind out of the limiting conditions of 
the particular here and now by means of attention to 
its own activity — the self as universal or transcendent, 
and at the same time as particular; for the ego is uni- 
versal, because it fills each particular moment — is wholly 
present in each, and because it is transcendent or wholly 
outside each moment. It can exist quite as well after the 
moment has elapsed or been thrust aside by another mo- 
ment. It is equally at home in all heres as in all nows, 
and likewise transcends them all. 

§ 247. II. In the second intention, the cogni- 
tion of general classes — which we have explained as 
the cognition of the individual object as a member 
of a species or class, and shown that this involves the 
ascent from thing to producing cause, the gener- 
al being, the-collective-aggregate-of-causal-conditions- 
which-produce-this-object-and-others-like-it — the mind 
turns its attention on the activity that creates the par- 
ticular; seeing it as objective process, it has climbed up 
from the particular toward the pure ego, or self^ 
which forms the abstract or transcendent extreme of 



392 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 

cognition. Just as the particular moments are grasped 
together through the determining cause that produces 
them, so, too, the multiplicity of determining causes 
perceived by the second intention are seen by the 
third intention to form one total, for they are in a 
process of interaction, and hence they have their 
negative unity or transcendent principle. The per- 
ception of this is the third intention. 

Aristotle, in his Categories (V), speaks of two forms 
of being- ( oixriai), or substances, the first being- individual 
objects of sense, and the second being- species, classes (oib 
generic energies). If the distinction of first and second in- 
tentions of the mind is correctly attributed to Avicenna, 
it is evident that he attempted to find the psychological 
coefficients of Aristotle's tw^o kinds of substances, the 
first intention perceiving individual things and the second 
their classes. 

§ 248. III. The unity of universals or classes, 
or rather of their producing causes, is found by the 
third intention in a first cause or first principle. To 
posit a first principle for the world of things and 
events is to ascend above experience to a transcend- 
ent origin. And yet the beginnings of philosophy 
show us many thinkers who select some one object 
of second intention and make it the highest. Inas- 
much, however, as the first principle is conceived as 
the origin of all that exists, it is the origin of very 
many things that are different from it in appearance. 



PSYCHOLOGY OF SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY. 393 

Hence the system of philosophy is bound to explain 
how the first principle through its activity deter- 
mines itself into other shapes or appearances. Sup- 
pose that the first principle assumed be called matter : 
then matter is the ultimate principle, the whence and 
whither of all; it is thus a universal, which is the sole 
origin of all particular existences, and also their final 
goal. Hence matter is conceived to be self-active, 
giving rise to the things and events of the world by 
the action of its energy within itself; for matter 
must contain potentially all that will come from it. 
It must be creative, causing them to arise, and de- 
structive in so far as it replaces them by others, trans- 
forming the old into the new. It is therefore tran- 
scendent, or in a higher order of being than that 
which changes, begins, and ceases — higher, in short, 
than objects of first or second intention. Such a self- 
active being must possess a pure ego, or self, and also 
have the energy known as self-determination, or life. 

Hence, as already shown in § 241, if we take X as the 
g-eneral symbol of the JEirst principle, we shall be obliged 
to define it as a self-active being-, living and intelligent. 

§ 249. TV. The fourth intention turns away 
from the result — namely, the first principle — and 
notes carefully the method of proving it. It breaks 
the connection between the mind and truth, between 



394 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 

tlie thinker and his theism, by criticising some step 
or steps in his method. The first stage of philosophy 
(third intention) was dogmatism; the second stage 
(fourth intention) is scepticism. 

The third intention looked at the one first principle 
as origin of the many processes of the second intention 
and of the many facts of the first intention. But there 
was a psycholog-ic coefficient — namely, the process of arriv- 
ing- at the first principle, the method of inquiry and 
demonstration. The fourth intention now considers this 
psychologic coefficient and criticises it; it compares the 
method with its result, and points out its inadequacies, 
seeming- or real. Since the first stag-e of philosophy rea- 
sons objectively from effects or dependent beings to first 
or original causes (independent beings), it assumes the 
validity of its ideas of cause, phenomena and noumena, 
dependence and independence, subjective and objective. 
It arrives at an ontological proof of the existence of God. 
But there is possible also a psychological proof of God. 
The ontological proof finds the presuppositions of being 
throug'h the principle of cause. So, too, a psychological 
proof may find the presuppositions of cognition to be 
an absolute reason. But at first psychology begins with 
pointing out the difficulties in knowing any objective 
being whatever. How can we pass over the gulf from 
the me to the not-me? The one and the many contra- 
dict each other, and hence what seems to us a world of 
being is an illusion. These were the earliest suggestions. 
Then came the nominalists, who attacked the second in- 
tention: universals are mere names or subjective classes; 
only individuals exist. Then came Hume with his denial 
of the validity of causality: instead of causality we have 
merely invariable sequence. Ontology could be certain 
still of its first principle, but only through its faith in 
causality. It could not answer any of the arguments of 
scepticism. The ancient scepticism showed that the ex- 



PSYCHOLOGY OF SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY. 395 

istence of finite being is impossible, and that, even if it 
existed, the knowing- of it is impossible. Modern scepti- 
cism finds our knowing subjective and inadequate for the 
knowing of any objective being. Both species of scepticism 
rest on difficulties in psychology, on mental incapacities; 
for even the objection that finite being is impossible, be- 
cause it is a self-contradiction, is at bottom the psycho- 
logical difficulty of conceiving dependent being (see § 143). 
The scepticism of Hume gave the impulse to Kant's 
studies. The Critique of Pure Keason made a systematic 
investigation of the psychology of cognition, and ex- 
pounded one set of principles — those on which dogmatism 
had built its ontological proof — and another set of princi- 
ples that had furnished the basis of scepticism. These 
were left standing in the form of an antinomy by Kant. 
The mind can prove two positions — one in accordance with 
dogmatism and the other with scepticism. By a criticism 
of the practical reason, Kant proves that the dogmatic 
conclusion must be believed and acted upon, although 
it can not be rescued from the antinomy of the pure 
reason. Kant's labour was so thorough and exhaustive 
that it was easy for his followers to escape altogether 
from the scepticism of the fourth intention. Schelling 
and Hegel accomplished this, but Fichte and Kant re- 
mained firmly on the negative or critical basis of the 
fourth intention. 

§ 250. Y. The fifth intention sees method as a 
totality: method is completed in a system. What the 
third intention does with the principle of causality 
and objective being — namely, sees the world to pre- 
suppose a divine first principle — the fifth intention 
does with psychology and the theory of cognition — it 
sees that the fact of consciousness presupposes an 

absolute ego or person. It sees that the underlying 
28 



396 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 

presupposition even of scepticism is a personal first 
principle. Scepticism perceives philosophic method 
only in glimpses. The critical philosophy of Kant ' 
and Fichte, putting together systematically the frag- 
ments, arrives at a whole, and establishes the result 
that psychology presupposes the same first principle 
that ontology does. Give scepticism the rein, make 
it as thorough as possible, and the result is a sub- 
jective idealism, which afiirms that the mind can not 
know anything but its own forms or ideas (see sec- 
ond part of Fichte's Vocation of Man for his most 
popular presentation of the view which is called 
solipsism). If that is so, face the conclusion, and 
we have the result that none of our categories 
apply to things-in-themselves. Time and space, qual- 
ity and quantity, causality and existence, are all 
subjective. But even then we have the world left 
precisely as experience had given it to us before. 
The difference is, that we know it to be subjec- 
tive now, and we thought it to be an objective 
thing-in-itself before. But we have still to divide 
our subjective world into a seeming subjective and 
a seeming objective world. But such a division 
proves to us that we have not thoroughly learned our 
doctrine of subjectivity; for we see now that we 
are still using one of our categories as objectively 



PSYCHOLOGY OF SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY. 397 

valid — namely, that of objectivity, or thing-in-itself ; 
for unless our idea of objectivity is valid, there is no 
world-in-itself over against the one as subject, and we 
include both objectivity and subjectivity within mind 
or reason. But if it is A^alid, then our cognition must 
be objective in respect at least to that category. And 
if one, why are not all the categories objective? But 
we have remaining our seeming objective world of ex- 
perience, though the objective world-in-itself has van- 
ished. We now turn the doctrine round and enunci- 
ate it thus: I find within my reason both a subjective 
world and an objective world. Reason is then the 
absolute. I perceive now that I had been mistaken 
as to the extent of my personality. It is not a small 
affair, like my body in space; it in some way tran- 
scends space and time, for I am in some way partici- 
pating in the absolute reason, and include somehow 
the entire world of subjectivity and the entire world 
of objectivity as found in my experience. This is the 
conclusion to which we arrive on the basis of a thor- 
oughgoing critical scepticism. And this is the fifth 
intention of the mind; for it sees that reason is abso- 
lute person, including subject and object, both real. 
It sees that the individual ego is transcendent of sub- 
jective as well as objective limitations, and hence 
both free and immortal. To be unfree, it must be 



398 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 

in space and not transcendent; it must be in a chain 
of causation and not self-active. To be mortal, it 
must be in time, and its ego must be like a flowing 
stream in wbicb all moves, even its banks. But such 
a flowing stream could not be conscious nor an ego, 
for the act of cognition rests on self -identity. With- 
out this absolutely permanent self-identity there 
could be no second intention of the mind. There 
could not even be a first intention; for the two ex- 
tremes of each act of consciousness (see § 246) in- 
clude an absolutely flitting present moment with an 
absolutely universal ego, abiding fixed in the flowing 
stream of present moments. 

(a) Fichte's writing's show an attempt to unite Kant's 
two critiques, the Pure and the Practical Reasons, with a 
stubborn resolution to retain the critical attitude of his 
master, and deny objectivity to the categories of the 
mind. He was eng-ag-ed throughout his life in making new 
expositions, each one of which was a step toward the fifth 
intention — toward the insight into objectivity of reason. 
This is especially evident in his Way to a Blessed Life,* 
the last of some eleven different expositions, in which he 
gradually approaches the true ontological consequences 
of his system. t But he never quite sees that complete 

* See William Smith's translation (Kegan Paul, Lon- 
don, fourth edition, 1889, Lectures III and IV, pp. 331-364 of 
vol. ii); see also Outlines of the Doctrine of Knowledge 
(in same volume). 

t See my preface to the English edition of Kroeger's 
translation of Fichte's Science of Knowledge (Kegan Paul, 
London, p. xviii). 



PSYCHOLOGY OF SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY. 399 

subjective idealism contradicts itself; that when you have 
the subjective purely by itself, it polarizes at once into 
subjective and objective v^^orlds, and solipsism is con- 
verted into cosmothetic idealism; or, in other w^ords, on 
shutting up the eg-o within itself, it finds a complete ob- 
jective world identical with the one from which it has 
been excluded by scepticism. Schelling- pondered over 
the significance of polarity, and at the time (1803) when 
he reached the doctrine that man and Nature are the two 
poles of existence, and absolute reason the indifference 
point uniting the two poles, we find the culmination of 
his thinking. 

(&) Hegel, in his Phenomenology, or Voyage of Dis- 
covery, shows that he solved the Kantian dualism through 
the Practical Reason. The ethical form (justice and 
loving-kindness) is the necessary form for absolute being. 
If a self-active being were not ethical, it would reduce 
itself to a zero; for its self-objectivation by means of cre- 
ative acts would by injustice and cruelty turn to naught, 
and hence its own consciousness of itself would grow dim 
and disappear altogether. According to Hegel, the moral 
is the necessary form in which freedom must exist if it 
exist at all. Hence in perceiving morality as the sub- 
stance of the Divine being (the Old Testament idea of 
righteousness and goodness as essential attributes of Je- 
hovah), man perceives the nature of absolute being, and 
thus arrives at absolute knowledge. 

(c) This was Hegel's Voyage of Discovery, to pass 
from immediate sense-perception to the knowledge of true 
being. He had now before him the problem to be treated 
in a work which he called Logic — namely, to show how 
all the categories of the mind, all its general ideas, pre- 
suppose the ethical ideal.* It should begin with empty 

* See The Science of Thought, by Prof. C. C. Everett, 
for an independent survey of this deduction of the cate- 
gories of the mind in such a logic, and a critical interpre- 
tation of the labors of Hegel in this direction. (Boston: 
De Wolfe, Fiske & Co., new edition, enlarged, 1890.) 



400 PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS. 

being, and end with ethical personality as the absolute. 
He is sure in advance that all ideas of the mind are frag- 
ments or imperfect definitions of ethical personality. 
Hegel's entire system is an exposition of the fifth inten- 
tion of the mind, the insight into the union of the sub- 
jective and objective in pure thought, or the validity of 
philosophy. He appears greatest in his treatment of 
history. Civil history, the history of philosophy, of reli- 
gion, art, and jurisprudence, all show the progress from 
Orientalism, in which man is unconscious of the divine- 
human in the absolute, to Occidentalism, in which the 
principle of ethical freedom gets realized progressively 
in all institutions. 



(1) 



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Year. (alphabetically by authors.) Cents. 

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The Story of Animal Life. By B. Lindsay. 

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